DANCEROULETTE
Dedicated to the collaborative efforts of composers and choreographers, this event brings both music and dance to Roulette. Some of the partnerships presented are years in the making while others have joined forces for the first time. Over the course of two nights, Melanie Maar & Kenta Nagai, Jessica Cook & Ashcan Orchestra, Katy Pyle & Jules Skloot, Beth Gill & Jon Moniaci, and Tess Dworman, Kyli Kleven, Steve May & Tristan Shepherd share their varied perspectives on the relationship between sound, movement, composition and choreography.

After the successful premiere of “Spaces and Bones” in 2010, the
rigorous collaboration between choreographer Melanie Maar and musician
Kenta Nagai continues. Both artists explore the outer limits of their
own physicality in material and intensive ways. Pairing essential
movement and sound with dramatic phrase and gesture, the duo pushes
their expressive vocabulary beyond narrative into a space of immediate
kinetic experience. For DANCEROULETTE, the two build on their recent
performances together, extending the stark imagery and vivid sound
palette they have created between them.

Melanie Maar is a New York based choreographer and dancer originally
from Vienna, Austria. Her latest piece, Spaces and Bones, a
collaboration with Kenta Nagai, premiered at The Chocolate Factory
Theater in December 2010. Maar recently co- curated the Movement
Research Festival 2010- HARDCORPS. Other choreographies and
improvisations have been seen in New York, San Francisco, Vienna,
Lisbon, Milan, Oslo and Berlin. Her teachers include Gertraud Maar,
Janet Panetta and Daria Fain. She has worked extensively with New York choreographer Luciana Achugar, as well as with RoseAnne Spradlin, Levi Gonzalez, Daria Fain, Luis Lara Malvacias and others.
www.melaniemaar.com for more info.

Kenta Nagai is an audio-visual artist and performer, originally from
Niigata Japan. His keen sense of physicality is reflected in his
current exploration of the physical properties of sound and its impact
on human emotion and the body. This interest has led to numerous
collaborations with dancers (Boaz and Anika K Barkan, Daria Fain, DD
Dorvillier, Bob Eisen, Zack Fuller and Jennifer Monson among others)
throughout his career as an improvisor and performer in New York City
and abroad. Nagai has appeared in numerous concerts at venues
including Carnegie Hall, Roulette, Issue Project Room, Lincoln Center
Out Door Stage, Rubin Museum, Hershhorn Museum at Smithonian
Institute, Sculpture Center, Japan Society and the Whitney Museum of
American Art.

Study #2 for E.M.
Choreography by Beth Gill
Sound by Jon Moniaci
Performed by Danielle Goldman, Jennifer Lafferty, Tara Lorenzen and Marilyn Maywald

Study #2 for E.M. is a work in progress showing of Gill’s current choreographic work Electric Midwife, which is set to premiere at The Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City, with a two and a half week performance run from June 17th – July 3rd. Performers include: Anna Carapetyan, Danielle Goldman, Jennifer Lafferty, Tara Lorenzen Nicole Mannarino and Marilyn Maywald. The work will include an original sound score by Jon Moniaci and lighting design by Madeline Best.

Beth Gill Beth Gill is a Brooklyn-based artist, who makes contemporary dance and performance in New York City. Since graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2003 she has accumulated a body of work that critically examines issues relating to the fields of contemporary dance and performance studies, through an ongoing exploration of aesthetics and perception. Ranging from short-term improvised structures to long-term choreographed performances, her work has been commissioned multiple times by The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, Food For Thought and Catch!

Jon Moniaci lives in Brooklyn where he is a composer, performer and computer programmer. Interested in improvisation and live electro-acoustic performance, he has collaborated extensively with dance artist Chase Granoff. He has also worked with Beth Gill, Peter Kerlin, Anna Sperber, Chris Peck, Steve Rush, Marissa Perel, Alex Escalante, Mark Jarecke, Nancy Forshaw-Clapp, Dean Moss, Peter Jacobs and is a member of the Brooklyn Adult Recorder Choir. His performance collaborations have been presented in New York, Milan and Berlin. In July he will be performing in San Francisco as part of the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival collision series with â ¤ the band (Granoff, Peck, Gill and Eleanor Bauer).