By Michael Fox, December 7th 2009 on www.sf360.org

“I’m interested in using film and video in ways that can help to bring an audience inside of a dance. I agree about Americans having an ‘addictive’ relationship with moving images—but I’m interested in tapping into that addiction and transcending it. I think that film is a form of communication that we’re all very accustomed to and comfortable with. I think integrating this more familiar form of communication into more unfamiliar and abstract vocabularies of movement and visual landscapes helps an audience to experience the work on multiple levels. I’m not necessarily trying to make my work accessible. I want to tap into each person’s way of experiencing things on multiple levels simultaneously.”  Read the rest of the interview.

From: Dance Flash: Catherine Galasso’s “Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice”

Becca Hirschman, December 9th 2009, on www.sfappeal.com

“We call it remounting because there’s a degree of updating going on… Not necessarily making the piece more “current” in terms of trend, but bringing it up to date according to the aesthetic development of myself and the rest of the cast.

“Three members of the original cast are reuniting for the purpose of this show, and one is brand new. Three years later we are different people, and it’s interesting to sort of go back in time, and examine who we were then through the lens of the piece. The reason I wanted the original cast is because I built the characters around their personalities. I enjoy working with different types of performers – friends who inspire me. Brandt Adams, who plays Roy, is an actor and teaching artist in New York City. Satya Stainton trained in ballet and modern dance, and currently administers a meditation center in upstate New York. Kathryn Shearman is an SF-based musician, visual artist, and performer under the moniker “Kazoo.” Jesse Hewit, the new member of the cast, is a director and performer, and a current artist-in-residence at CounterPULSE in San Francisco. Each member of the cast provokes and challenges me in different ways, which keeps the process exciting.

“The videos are being re-shot and edited by local video artist Loren R. Robertson. Together we are looking at what worked in the original video in order to make slight improvements. With both the live dance and the recorded video, we’re trying to strike a fine balance between preserving the original vocabulary of the piece and going deeper with it.”  Read the rest of the Interview.

Elaine’s most recent work utilizes video and light in relation to sculptural forms, digital prints, and preexisting sites in architecture and nature under the cover of darkness.  She has shown work at The Swiss Technorama Museum, Winterthur Switzerland, Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco, California, The Claremont Museum in Southern California, Pierogi Leipzig, Leipzig Germany, The Luggage Store in San Francisco,The San Francisco Arts Commission, California College of The Arts, Stanford University, The Wexner Center For The Arts, Sun Valley Center For The Arts, and Fusion Art Space, San Francisco, California.  Elaine attended The California College Of The Arts on a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from 2002-2004 and received her MFA from Stanford University in 2006. She currently teaches at Stanford University in the Art and Art History department as an adjunct faculty member. She has worked as a Lighting and Visual Designer in the bay area for 20 years and has also worked with Merce Cunningham and Meredith Monk recreating their visual environments internationally. She continues to tour with Meredith Monk as a Lighting Designer.  www.nighthouse.org

Kate in the babouska (sp?).

When trying to re-create an old piece, it’s difficult to not become obsessed with trying to replicate it exactly. I was pretty fixated on what I felt the shots should look like… since I am very attached to the original look. I missed having the snow contrast with Brandt’s costume, so that his body really stood out against the wilderness. But three years later we don’t have snow, we’re using a different woods, and Brandt is older; 3 years in New York City have changed him. We were excited to take advantage of the opportunity to improve the original, but I’m not sure what this new version will become. We’ll just have to wait and see what Loren Robertson and I can come up with in the editing room.

Here is a clip from the outtakes. Brandt with the sign at the entrance to the park.  It was a chilling 4o degrees… with a bitchin’ wind.

Michael Galasso, internationally acclaimed composer, violinist and musical director, was born in Hammond, Louisiana in 1949. Beginning as a violin prodigy, he started his career composing music for Robert Wilson’s “The Life And Times Of Joseph Stalin,” “A Letter For Queen Victoria” (for which he received a TONY nomination for Best Musical Score), “The $ Value of Man” and “Ouverture,” and in 1998 for “Donna del Mare” and “Dreamplay.” Recent collaborations with Wilson include “Les Fables de La Fontaine” for the Comédie-Française, and “Quartett” starring Isabelle Huppert which premiered in Paris and toured to Berlin, Geneva, Milan, Athens, and New York.

Galasso has constantly stretched the boundaries of contemporary music: from his early use of evolving music technologies, to working with Iranian, Indian, South American and African Musicians. He has performed more than 300 concerts all over the world in groundbreaking places; the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, The Kitchen in NY, the Médersa in Marrakech, the Roman Amphitheatre in Malaga. Galasso’s work has been presented in such festivals as the Festival d’Automne in Paris, The Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy and the Festival de Musique Montreux-Vevey.

Galasso’s compositions have been commissioned by many choreographers, including Andy DeGroat, Lucinda Childs, Karole Armitage, Paola Rampone for the Roma-Europa-Festival, and Carolyn Carlson for the Venice Biennial. His works have also been included in the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet.

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