Movement
Under Development (M.U.D.) and Fearliss Productions present GRIMM, an
evening-length infusion of dance, theater, puppetry and aerial silk.
In a land corrupted by famine and fear, parents grapple with the decision
to abandon their children. Our pint sized protagonists come of age as
they find themselves lost in the woods. Travelling through a world of
tumbling moonstones, dancing fire, prophetic puppets, and a vaulting
woodsman, the journeyculminates in an aerial adventure beyond their wildest
dreams. Grimm's family move from the intoxication of high impact swing
dance to bittersweet moments of physical entanglement as they discover
the light in the heart of the wood.
Join us for this exciting tale of empowerment and courage, a
family-friendly production which will premiere in New York City,
Summer, 2006.
GRIMM's Team of Collaborators
GRIMM is a production conceived by Otis Cook and developed in close
collaboration with Faith Pilger.
This vision continues to grow with the additional imagination and
creative power of the following artists:
SaReel Project - Composers/Musicians
Io Palmer - Fabric Design
Robert Whitman - Storybook Photographer
Jim Cook - Landscape Photographer
Sarah Nachbauer - Dancer
Jon Eden - Dancer
Robert Laqui - Dancer
Angela Jones - Aerial Trainer
Maurice Sendak - Artistic Advisor
Our website and graphic designer, John Stislow, pulls it all together
for your enjoyment.
For more information, please visit their websites or contact us
OTIS COOK - MOVEMENT UNDER DEVELOPMENT (M.U.D.)
Producer, Director, Choreographer, Performer
Mr. Cook was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, where he
discovered the stage as a professional break-dancer. After two years of
study in Japan, he returned to study Architecture, Asian Languages and
Theater. Otis worked with Diavolo Dance Theater in Los Angeles and
spent summers working in outdoor productions which involved stage
combat skills and gymnastics. He spent 5 years as a core member of
Pilobolus Dance Theater where he worked in collaboration with Maurice
Sendak, Kodo's Leonard Eto, The Saint Lawrence String Quartet, The
Klezmatics, and The Maria Schnider Jazz Orchestra. His film and
television work includes a featured role in Mira Banks' Award winning
Documentary "The Last Dance", guest appearances on The Regis and
Kathy
Lee show, Good Morning America, PBS's Egg and 60 Minutes. His body
sculptures, in collaboration with Pilobolus, have appeared in National
Geographic, Newsweek and Time Magazine as well as the books, Twisted
Yoga and The Human Alphabet. As a choreographer, Mr. Cook created work
for Momix's newest touring production, Lunar Sea. He has been
commissioned to create work for Wesleyan University, Suny Purchase and
Hartford's Learning Corridor. Presently, Otis is working with Danny
Ezralow on Julie Taymor's new film, "Across the Universe". He works
as
a freelance dancer with Pilobolus, Momix and The Perks and is in the
process of developing a new show with Martha Clark. An Active amateur
naturalist and instructor, Otis continues to fold nature and the human
struggle into his works. Otis Cook is the founder of Movement Under
Development (M.U.D.)
www.otiscook.com
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Producer, Director, Choreographer, Performer
Faith Pilger is a 1994 recipient of the Princess Grace Award (modern dance) and Juilliard School graduate (BFA 1995.) She has been performing, choreographing, producing and curating work nationally and internationally for over ten years. Recently she has toured extensively with Perks DanceMusicTheater, Jordana Toback's POON, and performed her choreography in collaboration with music/club groups SaReel Project, Musicians in Masques, Gen Arts and Pcult. Faith has been employed as a freelance dancer by The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Die Audio Gruppe, Mark Morris Dance Group, Nicole Berger Dance, Joe Alter Dance Group, Chase Dance Theater, Attacktheatre, Thinkdance, Stanley Love Performance Group and Pilobolus Dance Theater. She has produced her own solo productions, curated variety shows and founded performance groups such as Active Cultures, Ultraviolet and her current company, Fearliss Productions. Faith is currently working with Danny Ezralow on Julie Taymor's new film, "Across the Universe" and will appear with Rebecca Stenn Company's "Blueprint" at St. Marks Church, November 2005. She has taught dance workshops and performed in numerous outreach programs through Lincoln Center Institute and The Perks. Additionally, Faith works as an ACE Certified personal trainer and private Pilates instructor both independently and through Crunch Fitness.
www.pilger.com/faith
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Composers/Musicians
SaReel Project began as a collaborative effort between composer/performers Darryl Gregory and Sasha Bogdanowitsch and grew to include the talents of Peter Hadley, Justin Piccirillo, Brian Rizzi and Robert Nasta. The ideal aspect of this collaborative 'avant-world' ensemble is to explore the myriad sounds available to composers using instruments from around the world as well as common household items, junk and Western instruments. This group of composers is moving on a path of total integration of styles: bluegrass and Indonesian gamelan, jazz structure and Indian improvisational techniques, rock back-beat and African polyrhythms; nothing is sacred and why should it be? This is a project about the transmigration of styles and the surprising sounds and forms from these composer/performers. For more information of the backgrounds of each composer, visit www.sareel.com
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Fabric Design
Io Palmer received her BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia PA where she studied painting and ceramics. After teaching ceramics at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh PA she went on to receive her masters degree in fine arts from the University of Arizona, in Tucson. During her time in the desert she taught at the University of Arizona and collaborated with youth and adult artists to create large-scale public installations.
After five years in the Sonoran desert, she relocated to Minneapolis, MN where she currently is Public Arts Coordinator for the Folwell Center For Urban Initiatives. Ms. Palmer exhibits her work nationally and internationally. She has recently been in several group shows including What I Did On My Summer Vacation", at the Minneapolis
Foundation-"a traveling book show entitled "Women of the Book" and Race: Enter Personal Politics a group show at ATHICA Athens Institute For Contemporary Art in Atlanta Georgia. She is part of a creative duo that artistically discusses issues surrounding food and politics in alternative art spaces and is currently creating a book about foods from her travels to Thailand and Laos.
www.iopalmer.com
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Storybook Photographer
To Robert Whitman, photography is about more than just the pictures - it is a way of moving through life. Robert's pictures reflect a man who lives openly, passionately and
simply. From his vivid reportage shots of Cuban streetlife to intimate glimpses of languid embraces and gestures, his pictures emit a unique luminous movement that has become his trademark. He has the ability to evoke a vibration or motion in even the most static images; and his love for capturing elusive moments has given him the ability to find spontaneity even in the controlled atmosphere of studio shoot. Thus it is sometimes hard to distinguish which of Robert's images have been staged on a set and which have been captured in life. All of his shots look - and feel - like real moments. He attributes this aesthetic to his ability to relate with his subjects and make them feel
immediately comfortable with him. "I'm a nice guy, a simple guy," he says in complete earnestness. Clients and subjects alike welcome the breath of genuineness that Robert brings to his work. A self-proclaimed hippie, Robert left Minneapolis early in his career (where he was Prince's first principal photographer) to settle in New York. Since then, he has worked in the editorial field - Glamour, Marie Claire, Self, Cosmopolitan and others have hosted his images - and he has won laurels in the advertising sector, where his clients include Dewar's, Clinique, Coca-Cola, Marlboro, 7 Up, Visa, Dove and Doublemint, to name a few. He has been interviewed in PDN, Picture and Zoom magazines. Robert lives in New York and is currently working on a monograph.
www.robertwhitman.com
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Photosynthesizer of Arborous Creatures
Pickerel Arm Camp (P.A.C.) is where we leave the highway for the
12-mile boat ride to our wilderness island on Minnitaki Lake in Ontario, Canada. We started building a cabin there 26 years ago. It's home about 6 weeks a year. The photos are either taken there or at Dennic Cay, an out island, in the Pipe Creek Chain of Bahamian Islands, home for another 3-5 weeks a year for the last 9 years. Paul A. Chew (P.A.C.), Founding Director, Westmoreland Museum of American Art, 1925-2004, was our neighbor in Pennsylvania, and best friend. The pictures are dedicated in this way to his memory:
"Be careful approaching Doctor Cook's Island" is of course something of a tongue-in-cheek reference to Doctor Moreau's Island of H.G. Well's classic tale, Island of Lost Souls; the movie of 1933 about gruesome human/animal experiments with Charles Loughton; remade in 1977 starring Burt Lancaster; and made again in 1996 starring Marlon Brando. The process of natural decay fascinates me...how a mirrored image of nature suggests aboriginal art. Have you ever experienced the fear that comes from being lost, hungry, cold, wet, stung by insects and trapped by briers in the woods? I first attempted to express this disturbing vision in Canada in August 1994 when I shot a roll of reflections of the island shore in a glass-calm lake. I cut and pasted the images to create collages. Except for a couple of these early views, the pictures here are taken with a small 5mp Canon Powershot s50 camera, manipulated in Photoshop Elements on an Apple G4 laptop.
~Jim Cook
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Dancer
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JON EDEN
Dancer
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ROBERT LAQUI
Dancer
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Aerial trainer
Angela Jones recently retired from dance to become a trapeze artist. As a choreographer she was known for her "powerful stage presence" NY Times and "compelling images" -Backstage. She has shown her work at such places as the Skirball Center at NYU, Yerba Buena Arts Center in San Francisco, Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall, and the Clark Studio in Lincoln Center. Her aerial choreography has also been commissioned by the University of Mexico and for the Urban Arts Festival in Rotterdam. Currently she works as part of the duo Luminosity, performing duo acts on silk,trapeze, and lyra for circuses and corporate events around the world. This December they will be featured artists for "Nutcracker Dreams" with Circus Nexus in Florida. Angela was also born in Hamburg, Germany and graduated from Stanford University in Sociology.
www.angelajonesdance.com
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Artistic Advisor
Maurice Sendak was born in New York in 1928 and grew up in Brooklyn, the son of Jewish immigrants. He has described his childhood as "colored with memories of village life in Poland, never actually experienced but passed on to me as a persuasive reality by my immigrant parents." He has acknowledged significant inspiration from the sights, sounds, and experiences of his childhood, interpreted through a unique imagination. For instance, the wild thing characters of his best-known book were inspired by his aunts and uncles, who "looked like toothy monsters" to the young Sendak, and seemed to threaten to smother him with their attention.
He began his career as an illustrator in 1951 and first achieved major recognition with A Hole Is to Dig (1952), to a text by Ruth Kraus. He began working with colors on Charlotte and the White Horse (1955), but his typical style is not to compose in color but to use color to emphasize line and form. His work is influenced by a variety of other artists, including Blake, Watteau, Chagall, Goya, Picasso, and Matisse. With Kenny's Window (1956), Sendak began the exploration of the psychological fears and yearnings of childhood -- specifically, those of his own childhood. This exploration of childhood reached its earliest and perhaps best-known peak in Where the Wild Things Are, which won the Caldecott medal in 1964. That book combines elements of design and fantastic narration to examine the child's response to anger; Sendak considers it to be the first volume of a trilogy exploring children's responses to strong emotions. With Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water (1965), his next book after Wild
Things, Sendak increasingly relied on wordless pictorial sequences to tell a story, often "playing the pictures against a straight-faced text" in adaptations of folk stories and nursery rhymes. In the Night Kitchen (1970) was Sendak's first picture book in several years. This book received a Caldecott Honor citation and was published as Sendak's
international reputation was soaring; he received the Hans Christian Andersen medal that year for his contributions to children's literature. The third volume of the "trilogy," Outside Over There, is perhaps the most difficult, since it employs so many evidently symbolic images that have personal significance for Sendak but may not be apparent to the average reader -- adult or child.
Sendak's works have been adapted for film and opera, with Sendak himself contributing artistically to the stage sets and the adapted scripts. In part, this reflects his ongoing interest in film. Sendak first became a children's book illustrator when some of his sketches of city kids caught the eye of noted editor Ursula Nordstrom. She liked his work so much that she made sure he always had something to illustrate, assigning him to a variety of kinds of stories.
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Website/Graphic Designer
www.stislow.com
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