Projects & Collaborations

Works from 1991 till present.

Bridging Cultures Project

“Guzheng Plays Popular European-American Melodies”
Preview Sketch / Croquis (en français)

Music:

IIIZ+ Ensemble (changgu, koto, kayagum)
Bennett, Carla (Cello)
Chinese Music Ensemble of New York
Feltesse, Sylvie (Mezzo)
Norderval, Kristin (Soprano)
Pictet, Marie-Antoinette (Piano)
Van Drie, Melissa (Clarinet)
Wang, Changyuan (Guzheng)
Wangdu, Tshering (Tibetan flute, lute, viol, drums)
Wilson, Carrie (Soprano)

Performing Arts:

Gao, Xingjian (Theater)
Garnica, Ximena (Butoh)
Howard, Pamela (Theater)
Kuo, Pao-kun (Theater)
Kurosawa, Akira (Film)
Olivo, Oscar (Puppetry)
Initiation International (Theatre)

Projects in Music

IIIZ+ Ensemble (changgu, koto, kayagum)

IIIZ+ performs modern and traditional music for the three large bridged zithers of East Asia by both Asian and Western composers, offering insight into the musical and cultural interactions of China, Korea, Japan and the West. Their focus on one instrument-family makes prominent the similarities and differences of the national musics of East Asia while at the same time creating an entirely new sound.

Photo: IIIZ Emsemble, Paris (2004)
Performing with IIIZ+ Ensemble at Maison des cultures du monde, Paris (2004)

IIIZ+ Concert at La Maison des Cultures du Monde
[MondoMix.com] by Arnaud Cabanne
Watch Video: IIIZ

Collaboration: Stefan Hakenberg
Three Zithers and a Pair of Scissors

IIIZ+ Ensemble International Tour 2004
Feature Press Article in Juneau Empire

15 March, 2004 - Paris, France
Festival de l'imaginaire, Ensemble IIIZ+

12 March, 2004 - Utrecht, Netherlands
Rasa, Ensemble IIIZ+

27 February, 2004 - Connecticut, USA
Wesleyan University World Music Hall, IIIZ+

26 February, 2004 - New York, USA
(PDF Download 64KB)
North River Music, Renee Weiler Concert Hall

IIIZ+: The name IIIZ+ is intended to be and egalitarian one that is not language-specific, but, unlike 'the artist formerly known as,' also pronounceable in any language. The initial realization of the idea for IIIZ+ came about in 1998 when the committee in charge of the celebration of the opening of the new Asia Center at Harvard University approached Jocelyn Clark to put together a concert that would celebrate the coming together of the disparate cultures represented at the Center. A concert featuring the zither traditions of Asia, China, Korea and Japan specifically, playing together had been a long time dream of Clark's who had studied those three traditions since she was a teenager. The ensuing “Encounters” musical celebration, and the newly commissioned compositions created by that opportunity, became the seed of IIIZ+, which was founded in Darmstadt, Germany, the Mecca of new music in the West, in 2001. Since 2001, IIIZ+ has completed two successful tours in Europe and the US. Their 2002 tour culminated in a concert jointly hosted by the embassies of Japan and Korea that celebrated the World Cup in Washington D.C. Following that, IIIZ+ received honorable mention at the 2003 Werkstatt der Kulturen's Musica Vitale word music competition in Berlin. They will start their 2004 tour in New York City and end in Paris at the Maison des Cultures du Monde's Festival de l'Imaginaire, and play new works by L.A. composer Hiroko Ito and Berlin composer Il-Ryun Chung, and the existing work Three Zithers and a Pair of Scissiors by Alaska composer Stefan Hakenberg, among others.

Consult IIIZ+ official site: www.threezeeplus.com

Il-Ryun Chung (changgu and guitar) was born in Frankfurt/M. Germany in 1964. From 1967 to 1971 he lived in Seoul, Korea. At the age of 16, Chung taught himself to play the guitar and in 1984, he went to Berlin to study guitar and composition with Carlo Domeniconi. In 1992 he received a composition stipend from the Berlin Senate to continue in composition and in 1994 was awarded at the Berlin Festival for his Movement in Circles II for flute and guitar. Chung completed his studies in composition at the Berlin Music Academy (HdK) in 1995 with Prof. Jolyon Brettingham-Smith. An encounter with the Korean master drummer Kim Duk-Soo made a lasting impression upon Chung's rhythmic perception. In 2000-2001 he worked on a concerto for SamulNori and Orchestra. From the very beginning, the collaboration between composer and interpreter has been central to Chung's compositions, which, despite acute concern for idiomatic instrumental writing, always place the highest technical demands upon the performers. Concertizing as solo guitarist, chamber musician, and drummer for traditional Korean Music also remains an integral part of Chung's musical life. In 1997 he founded together with the violinist Matthias Leopold Duo Saitenwege (violin and guitar). In the year 2001 he founded together with Jocelyn Clark the Ensemble for contemporary and classical Asian music “IIIZ+”. Il-Ryun's works are published by Verlag Neue Musik and recorded by kreuzberg records.

Also see www.ilryunchung.com

Jocelyn Clark - (kayagûm) - grew up in Juneau, Alaska playing the piano, clarinet and oboe. After a year in Japan, she started studying the koto at age 18 with the Sawai Koto Academy under Yagi Michiyo, and later Maruta Miki at Wesleyan University. In 1990-1 she studied zheng at the Nanjing Academy of Arts in China, and then in New York with master Wang Changyuan. From 1992 to 1994 she received a scholarship to study traditional Korean music majoring in kayagûm performance at the National Classical Music Institute in Seoul, Korea. She returned in 1995 to study kayagûm with a grant from the Harvard Korea Institute. In 1999-2000, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to study Korean traditional music in Seoul with Ji Aeri and “National Intangible Human Cultural Asset,” Kang Jeongsuk. Jocelyn won the KBS Korean Folk Arts contest for foreigners in 1994 and 1999, and the HBS contest in 1995. She has appeared on SBS, and Arirang TV as well, and hosted her own radio show on the national traditional music broadcasting station, Kukak bangsong. In 2000-1 she returned to Korea on a Seonam Foundation Fellowship. She appeared at the 2001 Jeonju Sanjo Festival and at a private functions for the American Ambassador to Korea, the Korean ambassador to America, and the former US Secretary of State, James Baker. She is the co-founder and co-director of the new music festival, CrossSound in Alaska with composer Stefan Hakenberg, and she founded the East Asian zither ensemble IIIZ+ in 2001 with changgu player/composer Il-Ryun Chung of Berlin, and koto player Makiko Goto of the Netherlands. Her writing on the kayagûm appears in the liner notes of Hwang Byung-Ki's 2001 re-release box set in English, Korean, Japanese, and French. Jocelyn is currently finishing her Ph.D. at Harvard University with a grant from the Korea Institute.

Also see www.jocelynclark.com

Masayo Ishigure - (koto) - began playing the koto and jiuta shamisen at the age of five in Gifu, Japan. After initial studies with Tadao and Kazue Sawai, she became a special research student in 1986 at the Sawai Koto Academy of Music. The aim of the academy was to shed new light on koto music by incorporating everything from Bach to jazz and thus change the koto from being thought of only as a traditional Japanese instrument into an instrument of universal expressiveness. Later, Masayo Ishigure became one of a small group of disciples of the Sawais to have successfully completed the 33rd Ikusei-kai program sponsored by NHK to foster and train aspiring artists in Japanese music. In 1988, she received a degree in Japanese Traditional Music at Takasaki Junior Arts College with a concentration on koto and shamisen. The same year she was recorded on the CD, The World of Tadao Sawai. In 1994 she also appeared on the CD entitled Tori no Yoni [Like a Bird]: Tadao Sawai Compositions. Since that time she has performed all over the world, and appeared in such festivals as “Bang on a Can” (NYC) and the “CrossSound” new music festival in Alaska. She has been featured in two public television broadcasts: Music Under New York and World of Music. In December 1997 she performed a classical program of traditional koto music at Carnegie Hall, and in January 1998 she performed at Merkin Hall, NYC as part of the Music from Japan series, and in March in “Encounters” at Harvard University. In 1992 Ms. Ishigure began teaching koto and shamisen in the music department of Wesleyan University (CT) as an artist-in-residence where she formed the Wesleyan Koto Ensemble. She also offers private lessons as the only Sawai Koto Academy instructor in the New York metropolitan area.

Also see masayo-koto.home.att.net

Carla Bennett (Cello)

Born in London (1986), Carla Bennett began her cello studies from the age of six. Since 2000, she received instruction from Geneviève Teulieres at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, where she also pursues piano and chamber music. A recipient of the Jacqueline du Pré Scholarship, Bennett had participated in the masterclasses of Leonid Gorokov and Raphael Wallfisch.

In 2004, Bennett completed a performing tour in Austria. With the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra, she had performed the concerto of Lalo. Other performing venues include St. James Piccadily, St. Martin's-in-the-fields and Salle Cortot. Bennett returns to London in Fall 2005 to pursue musicology at Kings' College, University of London. She will continue her studies in piano and singing at the Royal Academy of Music.

Chinese Music Ensemble of New York

Founded in 1961, the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York is recognized as the only full-scale Chinese orchestra in the Americas. It maintains its standard of excellence through a program of musical exchanges with professional musicians from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Many of its award-winning musicians come from the Music Conservatories of Shanghai, Beijing, Sichuan, Tianjin and Shenyang, the College of Chinese Culture of Taipei as well as several renowned orchestras in China.

With over forty musicians, the orchestra's repertoire range from ancient classical to modern compositions. Devoted to promoting Chinese music performance and education in USA, the Ensemble has since performed at major performing venues in New York as well as in schools, universities, libraries and museums throughout the East Coast.

Also see www.chinesemusic.org

Sylvie Feltesse (Mezzo)

After her piano studies, Feltesse, an evident mezzo, continues to pursue singing as a passion. Since she had received instruction from various renowned professors, namely Mady Mesple, Mireille Alcantara and Simone Fejard. Now continuing her studies with Fejard, she also perfects her technique work with Linda Bond-Perry in New York and Paris.

Feltesse obtained her award for high performance from Union des Femmes Artistes Musiciennes (UFAM) in France. Since, she had sung for various festivals, choirs and églises in Paris.

Feltesse maintains a printing and engraving house, Les Lettres de St-Roch, whose traditions are dated from the 17th century, in the heart of Paris ( www.lettres-de-saint-roch.com ).

Kristin Norderval (Soprano)

Kristin Norderval, soprano, is a classically-trained performer, composer and improviser who specializes in developing new works for the voice. She received her Bachelor of Music in composition from the University of Washington, Master of Music in vocal performance from the San Francisco Conservatory and Doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.

Profiled by The New York Times in “Downtown Divas Expand their Horizons,” Norderval is also reviewed as one of “new music's best” in the Village Voice. Performing at festivals world-wide, her projects are experimental and cross-disciplinary, collaborating with film, theatre and installation artists, choreographers and sculptors. Her collaboration credits include projects with Robert Wilson, Martha Clarke, Victoria Marks and Philip Glass.

Commissions have included works for Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen, Bucharest International Dance Festival in Romania, and for “jill sigman / thinkdance” in New York. She has performed as a soloist with the Netherlands Dance Theater, the San Francisco Symphony, Oslo Sinfonietta and the Philip Glass Ensemble (Einstein on the Beach) and has recorded for CRI, Nonesuch, Mode, Deep Listening, Eurydice, and Point Records. She received artist-in-residencies at Harvestworks Digital Arts Studio and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2002, working on voice and electronics. She was Visiting Scholar of New York University in 2004.

Norderval is the recipient of a Norwegian artist's award stipend (Statens kunstnerstipend) in 2004 and 2005. Norderval also belongs to the duo Zanana ( Zanana.org ). In 2006, she is Artistic Director for Norwegian Theater Academy in Fredrikstad, Norway.

Also see www.norderval.org

Marie-Antoinette Pictet (Piano)

Currently a professor in piano performance at Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris and the Rouen Music Conservatory, Pictet has been an active pianist in France since the 1950s. A Steinway Pianos' artist, she made recordings that include Mozart's Piano Sonatas (Belvédère) and had collaborated with Peter Brook in his film adaptation of Margarite Duras' Moderato Cantabile (1960).

As a respected pedagogy in the French school of pianism, she has served on jury boards for various international piano competitions. At present, she serves on the committee board for International Francis Poulenc Piano Competition.

Also see www.ecolenormalecortot.com

Melissa Van Drie (Clarinet)

Born in Michigan, Melissa was part of the Grand Rapids Youth Symphony and St. Cecilia Youth Orchestra, with whom she appeared as soloist. Under the tutelage of John Varineau, Melissa also studied with Ethane Sloane and Brad Wong at Interlochen and University of Western Michigan.

Melissa attended Emory University on a music scholarship in 1997. Also pursuing English-American literature, she studied with Laura Ardan, principle of Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. She performed full solo concerts and attended Richard Stoltzman and James Pyne's masterclasses. She held principle chairs in the orchestra, toured Budapest, Prague and Vienna with Emory Wind Ensemble, and performed in Orvieto Musica, Italy. In 2004, she obtained a Masters of Historical Musicology from New York University, collaborating with composers from NYU School of Music to premiere new works and playing in the production of John Cage's Musicircus.

Melissa now prepares a doctoral thesis at Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, examining the roles of sound, listening, and spectator in constructing theatre events during early 20th century. Other musical projects include dabbling in jazz and arabe-andalou music with guitarist Julien Coulon.

Changyuan Wang (Zheng)

Considered to be one of the most famous contemporary guzheng performers in the world, Wang was born in Hangzhou, China. She grew up in a musically renowned family as a child prodigy and received her formal musical education from Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Her father, Wang Xunzhi, a reputed professor and composer of zheng music, was a strong advocacy of Zhejiang traditional zheng music and founded his own school of zheng performance.

Wang has made numerous recordings, all of which span across the entire zheng history of China. Since the 60s, Wang has received various state and international honorary awards. She made appearances with all major Chinese orchestras in mainland China, notably as a soloist with Shanghai Traditional Chinese Orchestra of Music and Central Traditional Orchestra of Music. Her own compositions (such as Fighting the Typhoon) now remain as the classics of modern guzheng pieces.

After the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Wang moved to USA where she continued to teach and perform worldwide. In the 1980s, she often appeared as soloist and conductor of Chinese Music Ensemble of New York. Now residing in New York, she founded Wang Changyuan Zheng Academy. Her students who currently remain active in the international musical scene are numerous and many.

Also see www.guzhengwangchangyuan.com

Tshering Wangdu (Tibetan flute, lute, viol, drums)

Tshering Wangdu was born in Kalimpong (near Darjeeling), India, to Tibetan parents from the Amdo region. He was trained since the age of four at the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Institute (www.itbci.org), which was founded in 1954 by Dhardo Rimpoche, a renowned Tibetan religious master. Since, he received a traditional education in the Tibetan art of music and dance. Upon graduation, he continued teaching at the Institute. In 1994, Wang created the Gangjong Doeghar (Snow Land Performing Arts Ensemble) with other Tibetan artists of the Institute, and began performing throughout India and Europe.

As a musician, Wangdu sings and plays various traditional Tibetan instruments like dra-nyen (six-stringed lute), pi-wang (two-stringed viol), gyü-mang (dulcimer), te-ling (Tibetan transversal flute), boukshel (cymbals) and rnga (drum). Now living in France, Wangdu is also the only Tibetan artist in Europe to perform the Yak and Snow Lion dances during his shows. He performs solo shows of song, music and dance, which are conceived as a “musical journey” to the very core of the “roof of the world.” Till today, he performs actively and conducts master-classes as well as workshops in schools and cultural institutions.

Wangdu collaborates with Fiona Sze-Lorrain on interpreting an original and rich repertory of Tibetan Lu, Shey, Nangma and Töshey folk songs with their combination of guzheng, voice and Tibetan musical instruments. Together, they also explore Chinese folk melodies and modern works, as well as other genres of Oriental music.

Also see www.tshering-wangdu.com

Carrie Wilson (Soprano)

Wilson is currently a faculty member at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York. She graduated from Barnard College, with a degree in art history, and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre where she studied with Sanford Meisner.

A mezzo-soprano, Wilson attended the Goldovsky Opera Institute and was a feature artist in Lincoln Center Library's Rachmaninoff program. With the Musician's Club of New York, she was also soloist in the New York premiere of Julian Orbon's Tres Cantigas del Re at the Spanish Institute. Off-Broadway, she appeared in The Pinter Plays, and the Carmines-Fornes musical Promenade. Most recently, she sang music by Sir Edward Elgar at the University of Birmingham, UK, and performed Marcabru at Centre d'études superieures de la Renaissance in Tours, France.

As an educator, she has taught seminars based on Aesthetic Realism throughout the States and spoke at numerous international conferences. She is also the artistic coordinator for The Terrain Gallery, where she organised exhibitions of contemporary art based on Eli Siegel's teachings.

Wilson is affliated to the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Actors Equity, National Association for Music Education, Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations, and the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA). She is included in Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who of American Women, and Who's Who in the World.

Also see www.aestheticrealism.org

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Projects in the Performing Arts

Gao Xingjian (Theater)

Noble Prize in Literature, 2000.

Gao Xingjian, born January 4, 1940 in Ganzhou (Jiangxi province) in eastern China, is today a French citizen. Writer of prose, translator, dramatist, director, critic and artist. Gao Xingjian grew up during the aftermath of the Japanese invasion, his father was a bank official and his mother an amateur actress who stimulated the young Gao's interest in the theatre and writing. He received his basic education in the schools of the People's Republic and took a degree in French in 1962 at the Department of Foreign Languages in Beijing. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) he was sent to a re-education camp and felt it necessary to burn a suitcase full of manuscripts. Not until 1979 could he publish his work and travel abroad, to France and Italy. During the period 1980-87 he published short stories, essays and dramas in literary magazines in China and also four books: Premier essai sur les techniques du roman moderne/A Preliminary Discussion of the Art of Modern Fiction (1981) which gave rise to a violent polemic on “modernism”, the narrative A Pigeon Called Red Beak (1985), Collected Plays (1985) and In Search of a Modern Form of Dramatic Representation (1987). Several of his experimental and pioneering plays - inspired in part by Brecht, Artaud and Beckett - were produced at the Theatre of Popular Art in Beijing: his theatrical debut with Signal d'alarme/Signal Alarm (1982) was a tempestuous success, and the absurd drama which established his reputation Arrêt de bus/Bus Stop (1983) was condemned during the campaign against “intellectual pollution” (described by one eminent member of the party as the most pernicious piece of writing since the foundation of the People's Republic); L'Homme sauvage/Wild Man (1985) also gave rise to heated domestic polemic and international attention.

In 1986 L'autre rive/The Other Shore was banned and since then none of his plays have been performed in China. In order to avoid harassment he undertook a ten-month walking-tour of the forest and mountain regions of Sichuan Province, tracing the course of the Yangzi river from its source to the coast. In 1987 he left China and settled down a year later in Paris as a political refugee. After the massacre on the Square of Heavenly Peace in 1989 he left the Chinese Communist Party. After publication of La fuite/Fugitives, which takes place against the background of this massacre, he was declared persona non grata by the regime and his works were banned. In the summer of 1982, Gao Xingjian had already started working on his prodigious novel La Montagne de l'Âme/Soul Mountain, in which - by means of an odyssey in time and space through the Chinese countryside - he enacts an individual's search for roots, inner peace and liberty. This is supplemented by the more autobiographical Le Livre d'un homme seul/One Man's Bible.

A number of his works have been translated into various languages, and today several of his plays are being produced in various parts of the world. In Sweden he has been translated and introduced by Göran Malmqvist, and two of his plays (Summer Rain in Peking, Fugitives) have been performed at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm.

Gao Xingjian paints in ink and has had some thirty international exhibitions and provides the cover illustrations for his own books.

Awards: Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres 1992; Prix Communauté française de Belgique 1994 (for Le somnambule), Prix du Nouvel An chinois 1997 (for Soul Mountain).

From Nobel Lectures: Literature 1995-2000, Editor Horace Engdahl, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 2002

Also see www.nobelprize.org

Pamela Howard (Theater)

Based in London, Pamela Howard is a reputed theatre designer, director, writer, educator, exhibition curator and international producer creating theatre events in many countries and languages. Awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus fellowship in 1999, she published What is Scenography? with Routledge in November 2001. Creator (adaptor, director and designer) of La Celestina (by Fernando de Rojas 1492) at the Hopkins Center, USA (February 2002), her text is published by Oberon Books in 2002/3, with future productions planned in London and Israel.

Howard is the site specific designer of The Government Inspector in Los Angeles, USA (May 2002), creator/designer for ScenOmanifestO! At Rex Cinema in Belgrade (September 2002), designer for Victory (Howard Barker) at Theatre Wspolzecny Wroclaw (International Festival 2003), and a new opera for the Northern State Opera Thessaloniki as part of the Greek Cultural Olympics 2004. In 1999, she produced Opera Transatlantica's Concierto Barroco for the London International Festival of Theatre. In 2001, she co-created a new production of Rondo Adafina for production in London and Caracas (2002/3) for the company. Howard is also curator of two major international exhibitions, Frantisek Zelenka: Stage Designer 1904-1944 (shown in London), and Ralph Koltai Retrospective (shown in London, and South-East Asia).

Extracted from www.theatredesign.org.uk

Also see www.pamelahoward.co.uk

Ximena Garnica (Butoh)

Garnica is an actress-dancer and theatre director. She started performing at the age of eight, and trained with masters Mario Jurado and Ruben Di Pietro in her native country Colombia before she moved to New York City in 1998 to study theatre direction at the City College of New York. She began working intensively with Juan Merchan in 1999 and self-training in Japanese Butoh Dance and physical theatre. She has studied Butoh under Yuko Kaseki, Momo Koga, Su-En, Ko Murobushi, Yukio Waguri and Akira Kasai. She has also studied theatre with the SITI Company, Utah Hagen (HB Studio) and at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute.

Throughout the past four years Garnica has collaborated with several artists including recognized musicians Jack Write, Tim Barnes, Tatsuya Nakatani, Grundik Igor Kasyanskyk and Petre Radu Scafaru, videographer Shige Moriya, sculptor Hisayasu Takashio, poet Steve Dalachinsky and painter Naoki Iwakawa. Her solo work is often self created and directed. In 2002 Garnica directed her first full length ensemble production: La Marcha by Argentinean play writer Alberto Adellach and in 2004 a second one, an original work titled Tracing W(rite). While in Colombia, 1992-1997, she worked as a principal in several theatre productions and was part of television productions. Garnica is currently the Associate Director of CAVE Organization Inc, a non-profit arts organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Co-Founder and Co-Director of the New York Butoh Festival; and Artistic Director of CAVE.

Also see www.caveartspace.org

Pao-Kun Kuo (Theater)

Since 1949, Kuo was widely acknowledged as the most significant dramatists in the Singapore arts scene. Upon graduation from the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Australia in 1965, Kuo co-founded the Practice Performing Arts School with choreographer Goh Lay Kuan in Singapore. The Theatre Practice (TTP) is an offshoot of this important institution. To date, Kuo's plays, such as The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole (1985), The Silly Little Girl and The Funny Old Tree (1987), Mama Looking for Her Cat (1988), Lao Jiu (1990) and The Spirits Play (1998), etc, have become a landmark of Singapore theatre. His works have been translated into Malay, Tamil, German, Japanese and Arabic, and been produced and performed by many theatre companies in Singapore and abroad.

Kuo's contribution to the arts community extends beyond just the writing and producing of plays to the training of a whole generation of directors and actors as well as the founding of The Substation - a Home for The Arts, one of the leading arts organisations in Singapore today. Outside the theatre, Kuo's English plays have been collected in the book The Coffin is too Big for the Hole & Other Stories while his Chinese works have been compiled in Images at the Margin. Kuo was also invited by the Television Corporation of Singapore to produce and write the script for a television movie, Grandpa's Meat Bone Tea in 1997.

In recognition of four decades of contribution to the theatre scene, Kuo is the recipient of several awards including Singapore's Cultural Medallion in 1989, the ASEAN Award for the Performing Arts in 1993 and the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1997. Kuo also served as the Artistic Director of The Theatre Practice and Practice Performing Arts School, as well as lecturer in Theatre Studies at the Nanyang Technological University. He died in 2002, Singapore.

Extracted from www.singaporetheatre.com

Also see ttp.org.sg and substation.org

Akira Kurosawa (Film)

Akira Kurusawa was born in 1910 at Omori (Tokyo), Japan.

After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, making his directorial debut in 1943. After working in a wide range of genres, he made his breakthrough film Rashomon in 1950. It won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West. The next few years saw the low-key, touching Ikiru (1952) (Living), the epic Shichinin no samurai (1954) (Seven Samurai) and the barbaric, riveting Shakespeare adaptation Kumonosu jo (1957) (Throne of Blood), the later two showcasing the magnetic personality of Toshirô Mifune, who also starred in the two samurai comedies Yojimbo (1961) and Tsubaki Sanjûrô (1962).

After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide. He survived, and made the Russian co-production Dersu Uzala (1975) and, with the help of admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, the samurai epic Kagemusha (1980), which was in many ways a dry run for Ran (1985), his second Shakespeare adaptation. He continued to work into his eighties with the more personal Yume (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991) and Madadayo (1993). Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where critics have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors (William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Maxim Gorky and Evan Hunter) with suspicion - but he's revered by American and European film-makers, who remade Shichinin no samurai (1954), as The Magnificent Seven (1960), Yojimbo (1961), as Per un pugno di dollari (1964) and Kakushi toride no san akunin (1958), as Star Wars (1977). He died in 1998 at Setagaya (Tokyo), Japan.

(IMDb mini-biography by Michael Brooke www.imdb.com )

Oscar Olivo (Puppetry)

Born in New York to Dominican parents, Oscar attended a theater-arts curriculum high school before attaining his Bachelor of Arts in Drama and Theater Arts at Columbia University. In Columbia, he embarked upon his career on puppetry and had worked with veteran artists such as Amy Trompetter (Bread and Puppet Theater), Steve Friedman and Denny Patridge.

At present, he is working on a four-year specialized university post-graduate degree on puppetry at the acclaimed Hochschule fuer Schauspielkunst “ErnstBusch” Berlin Puppenspielkunstabteilung in Germany, where he also staged various puppetry productions. In Berlin, his work focuses on the art and techniques of puppeteering, as well as the “problems” of creating original puppetry-arts oriented work.

Fluent in English, Spanish and German, Olivo has performed in numerous non-puppetry, puppetry, and mix pieces in the States and now Germany. In 2003, he presented with Adrienne Campbell-Holt Radio Sintesi: Simultaneous Translation during the 7th Annual DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival in Brooklyn. His past performing venues included Minor Latham Playhouse (Barnard), Blackbird Theater (Rosendale) as well as various off-off Broadway theaters in New York City.

Initiation International (Theatre)

Initiation International aims to offer an intimate platform of creative discovery in an open and non-threatening atmosphere of artistic exchanges. Inspired by the concept of a performance panel, this international performing arts festival seeks to draw together a variety of unique performances that respond to a collective theme. Artists may interpret the given theme from their individual perspectives and create an original performance accordingly. Showcased artists may share their journey in response to the year’s given theme while audiences are encouraged to provide thoughts and feedback to the artists’ works in an atmosphere of openness and genuine support. As such, Initiation International also invites the submission of works-in-progress as an avenue of growth and inspiration.

Also see www.initiationinternational.com