Come see Nina Haft & Company’s next performances about water on

Sept. 22-24, 2016 at the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco.

 

Join our mailing list: nohaft@gmail.com

 

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Bios

 

Lisa Bush is a founding member of Nina Haft & Co. and has worked with many other local choreographers (Sima Belmar, Carol Kueffer, Dana Lawton, Randee Paufve, Jill Randall, and Alisa Rasera). In NYC, Lisa danced in the Wendy Perron Dance Co., and with several other artists, before relocating. She’s choreographed for theater groups Island City Opera, Virago Theatre, Alameda Children’s Musical Theater, and more. Lisa is a teaching artist for East Bay Music Together.

 

Kevin Corcoran is a percussionist and field recordist with an open interest in sound as medium as it moves through contexts of art, music, ecology, and communication. As a drummer/percussionist he is most interested in techniques which extend the sonic possibilities of the instrument emphasizing textural sound, atonal sympathetic vibration, sustained tones without audible attack and found objects.

 

When Nathan Forster discovered dancing as a nearly movement-inept  freshman at Drew University in New Jersey, it was love at first everything. Nathan’s work as a performance artist seeks to integrate mind and body with a strong connection to space and breath, and is deeply influenced by his teachers Nina Haft, Abigail Hosein, Nol Simonse, Cheryl Clark, and Jessica Wolf. Nathan is overjoyed to be dancing with Nina Haft & Co. at the Shoreline.

 

Dan Gottwald is a sculptor, sound artist, instrument builder, composer and musician.

His work focuses largely on tactile, temporary and social themes, using form, sound and movement. Recent works have been showcased in San Francisco's Market Street Prototyping Festival and the Megapolis audio art festival in Oakland. He holds a bachelor's degree in sculpture form the University of New Mexico and a Master's degree in electronic music from Mills College. For more information visit dangottwald.com

 

Nina Haft is an intrepid choreographer who “carves space with a sculptor’s savvy.” She has created over ten evening-length playful and provocative works of cultural commentary and innovative site-specific performance in collaboration with the members of Nina Haft & Company since 2000.  Nina Haft & Company is known for the Dance in Unexpected Places Series, presenting epic and intimate performances in dockyards, synagogues, parking lots, libraries, train stations, bars, government buildings, cemeteries, and other liminal spaces.  Nina is on faculty at Cal State University East Bay and at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, where NH&Co. is in residence.

 

Leah Kahn trained at Kent State University and Columbia College Chicago, and has performed in Ohio, Michigan, Chicago, Jerusalem, and in the Bay Area. In Chicago, she performed and choreographed for the HouseHold Arts Collective and Tikvah Company of Artists. While living in Jerusalem, she danced for Merhav Mechol (“Dancespace”) directed by Miriam Engel. Locally, she has performed her own choreography, has danced for Rogelio Lopez and recently started dancing for Abigail Hosein in ahdanco. She is also a yoga teacher and works as the Senior Jewish Educator at Berkeley Hillel. Leah is very excited to be a part of this unique work!

 

Carol Kueffer-Moore has been dancing with Nina since 1996. She has an MFA in dance from New York University and has taught at UC Santa Cruz, Sonoma State University, and Saint Mary’s College. Her choreography has been produced in New York, Brazil and in the Bay Area. She was a founding member of the New York based company, David Dorfman Dance and toured internationally for eleven years. Carol teaches children at Shawl Anderson Dance Center and New Highlands Academy.

 

An Oakland dancer and manual therapist, Qilo Matzen has performed throughout North America and Europe: touring the Balkans with arts/activist collective Building Bloc (2006) and co-directing Change of State Performance Project (2005-2009). Creeks, bathrooms and black box theatres set the stage for Qilo's immersive and somatically informed performances. Recent collaborators include Jai Arun Ravine and The Water Underground. Qilo's education spans North Carolina's swamps, U. Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (BFA) and Moving on Center.

 

Megan Meyer is an Oakland-based vocalist, choreographer, and performing arts director. She studied classical voice at University of Minnesota and received dance training at Mills College in Oakland and the Centre Chorégraphique National in Montpellier, France. Megan has produced work aired by NPR and Indiana Public Media, and has lent her voice to numerous video games, audio books, operas, and contemporary compositions.

 

Mo Miner is a Bay Area modern dance teacher, performer, and choreographer.  She currently teaches classes at USF, UC Berkeley, and Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, where she also directs the Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble.  Most recently Mo has performed for Nichele Van Portfleet, Rogelio Lopez, and Rebecca Chun.  In 2013 she co-founded the Mid To West Dance Collective with Sarah Chenoweth, Rebecca Chun, and Kate Vigmostad.  www.mominer.com

 

Robin Nasatir is a Berkeley native who started dancing in a Shawl Anderson youth class at 11.  While her performing career has included theater, stilt walking and salsa dance, Robin has been performing modern dance on and off since her teens.  She currently performs with Dana Lawton Dances and teaches at Shawl Anderson.  She is thrilled to be performing with Nina Haft and Company in this wonderful project. 

 

Stephen Parris is a composer and performer whose work has followed his interests in improvisation, and Javanese and American gamelan traditions. His work as a guitarist and improviser can be heard through various ensembles from the Monktail Creative Music Concern. As a gamelan musician, he has performed and recorded as a member of Gamelan Pacifica, and performed with Sari Raras, Mynah Gamelan, and Gamelan Sekar Jaya. He is currently the director and founder of Gamelan Encinal.

 

David Samas is a composer, curator, conceptual artist, instrument inventor, and social sculptor. David got his a BFA from the SF Art Institute in conceptual art in 2000 and studied poetics at the New College of California. He manages and curates the Window Gallery for Invented Instruments at the Center for New Music SF, is artistic director of the Turquoise Yantra Grotto, and teaches invented instrument workshops through Thingamajigs (Oakland), where he is director of community outreach.

 

Lili Weckler is a dancer, singer, and writer. She studied at the Lecoq School in Paris and toured the East Coast with Bread and Puppet Theater. She’s presented work at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, at JoeGoode Annex, at Viracocha, and as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival. She  was a teacher at Brightworks School for three years, and is a member of Hatch Collective and of New Dictionary Dance Project.

 

Jesse Wiener, born in Minneapolis, MN, is a recent graduate from Oberlin College where she majored in Environmental Studies with a focus in Water and Society and minored in Dance. Jesse is thrilled to be a part of this project that brings these two worlds together and to work with this incredible group of people. 

 

SPECIAL THANKS to King Tide dance artists Josie Alvite, Mary Armentrout, Jessi Barber, Rebecca Chun, Melanie Cutchon, Chris Gallegos and Jasmine Yohai who contributed greatly to the creative research and video projects for King Tide Shoreline.Thank you to Jennifer Koney, Adrienne dePonte, Anne Graham, Tony, Aaron, Elena, Patti, Mark and everyone at the Hayward Shoreline for partnering with us. Stacey Bristow, Erik Pearson, Marina Psaros, Kimberley Hawkins, Mary Ellen Hunt and Darin Moriki – thank you for spreading the word about our shows.