The Fringe Festival

Philly Fringe Festival

Fresh Juice:
Shared evening of dance to feature six Philly artists

Mascher Space Coop in Kensington presents Fresh Juice, a shared evening of dance, video, and multimedia performance featuring the work of six Philadelphia choreographers. Five performances will be offered throughout the Philly Fringe Festival on Thurs, Sept. 6 & 13 at 9PM; Sun, Sept. 9 at 7PM; Tues, Sept. 11 at 7PM; and Fri, Sept 14 at 9PM. Tickets for Fresh Juice are $10 and are available through the Philly Fringe box office at http://www.phillyfringe.org or 215.413.1318. Fresh Juice runs 90 minutes.

Mascher Space Coop is located at 155 Cecil B. Moore Ave. (Mascher St. and Cecil B. Moore Ave.) in Philadelphia (for details on getting to Mascher see the bottom of this page).

Dubbed the “next collective art space” in 2007 by Philadelphia Weekly in their "Next Philadelphia" issue, Mascher Space Coop members Meg Foley, Erin Foreman-Murray, Makoto Hirano, Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd, Zornitsa Stoyanova, and Christina Zani collaborate to produce fresh works, fresh ideas, fresh (as in recently arrived; just come) juice (essence, strength, or vitality).

Meg Foley will present slip with dancers Devynn Emory, Christina Zani, and Jil Stifel, in which formal elements such as accumulation, obstruction, and choice are exploited in order to expose a glimpse of what it means for humans to be human: breakable, feeling, physical beings in relation to one another. Erin Foreman-Murray walks the line between the ordinary and extraordinary, reality and the fantastical in a group work exploring dream states. Makoto Hirano and David O'Donnell try and try again in prototype. In gasp, Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd uses the performers' bodies as points of genesis: dancers are accompanied by their own breath manipulated by electronic musicians Bilwa and Mikronesia, while their bodies metamorphose via live video projection by John Phillips. Zornitsa Stoyanova pushes the boundaries of the audience-performer interaction in her multimedia work, Insert Headset, and Christina Zani tries to reconcile modern life while dancing, talking, and eating her way through an accumulation of movement and images in abun/dance.

Fresh Juice: six Philadelphia choreographers showing experimental works on the outskirts of the city. Could we be any more fringe? For more information visit http://mascherdance.com or http://www.perpetualmvmtsnd.org/freshjuice

Mascher Space Coop provides a supportive home for Philadelphia-based movement artists and small companies to develop and perform their work. Founded in 2006, Mascher produces the In Flux performance series and Philly Dance COSMOS, a community supported class series.

Artists' bios:

Bilwa is a Philadelphia-based musician and visual artist. He is a member of Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, where he curates the performance series PARAPHRASE/NEXUS. Bilwa is also currently co-director of Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd and a member of Mascher Space Coop. Past projects include Hoopty Heaven, an ambient dub duo whose cd Elements was released in 2001 by the Slought Foundation, and VERSIONsound, a roots/reggae/dub soundsystem. Bilwa is also co-founder of the Rashomon Effect Performance Project, an electronic music series inspired by the storytelling method employed in the 1950 film by Kurosawa. Bilwa has shown photographs, paintings, and mixed media works at The White Couch Art Room, Rocket Cat Café and Gallery, Soy Café and Gallery, Rogue's Gallery, Crosley Deluxe Gallery, and Spirit Wind.

Meg Foley is an independent dance artist and choreographer based in Philadelphia. She received a BA in Dance from Scripps College and a Professional Diploma in Dance Studies from Laban Centre London. As well as presenting her own work, she has the good fortune to dance/perform for Nichole Canuso Dance Company and for Devynn Emory. Her favorite color at the moment is green.

A native of rural north-central Pennsylvania, Erin Foreman-Murray is a dancer and independent choreographer based in Philadelphia. She received her BFA in modern dance from Temple University and has also trained at the American Dance Festival, Vassar College, and Barnard College. Recently, Erin has had the pleasure of showing her work at the Movement Research Open Performance Series (NYC), In Flux, the FAR Space with Limina Projects (NYC), the Glue Performance Series, and Current. Erin is a resident artist of the Mascher Space Coop and on the team coordinating Philly Dance COSMOS, the community supported class series.

Makoto Hirano was born in Japan and raised in Chicago. He studied dance and theater performance at Columbia College Chicago, and at Temple University where he earned a B.F.A. in Dance. Now based in Philadelphia, his works have been presented by Yale University, Melanie Stewart's Dancehouse, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, and at the Asian Arts Initiative through the APIA Residency Program. Performer/collaborator credits include: Love Unpunished and Barrymore-nominated Pay Up with the Obie Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company, St. Matthew Passion with Myra Bazell, and multimedia installation Still Unknown with Subcircle. Makoto was a performing company member with Paule Turner/COURT (Dance Magazine's 'Top 25 to Watch') in '04-'05. Makoto's writing has been commissioned for Selective Sight (Subcircle) through Brat Production's 'Causeway Series.' His current projects include: Accent - Roko Kawai; TAR - Charles O. Anderson/Dance Theatre X; Wandering Alice - Nichole Canuso Dance Company; Strawberry Farm - OMNiBUS Performance Co.

Zornitsa Stoyanova is a native of Bulgaria and holds her B.A. in Dance and Sound Design from Bennington College where she studied with Susan Sgorbati, Susan Rethorst, Dana Reitz, Eva Karczag, Brendan McCall, Paul Matteson, and Terry Creach. Her improvised and choreographed works have been shown in Bulgaria, Hungary, and at St. Mark's Church in New York City. In addition to recently launching her own performance group, HEREBEGIN DANCE CO., Zornitsa is a member of Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd. She is also an experienced sound designer, videographer, and theater technician and has designed lights for numerous dance companies, including Amnesiac Music and Dance and PIMA Group.

Emily Sweeney co-directs Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd, an interdisciplinary performance collective in residence at the Mascher Space Coop in Philadelphia, which she also helps administer. A member of Susan Sgorbati's Emergent Improvisation Ensemble, she has presented her own improvised and choreographed works as part of PARAPHRASE/NEXUS, the bowerbird performance series, and in the Soundfield Festival. Her work will be presented at the CEC during the 2007-08 New Edge Mix series. Emily has danced in the work of Dana Reitz, Susan Rethorst, Doug Elkins, and Nia Love at such venues as the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and the White Wave Dance Festival. Emily holds her B.A. in Dance and Literature from Bennington College.

Christina Zani is a dancer and choreographer living in Philadelphia. A student of many movement techniques, she has pursued ballet, tumbling, competitive tap, Graham technique, contact improv, release techniques, and Haitian dance, among others. After studies at the University of Michigan, Zani moved to NYC where she performed her own work at CB's Gallery, Bridge For Dance, Jennifer Muller's HATCH series and Fort Greene Park. In 2003 she moved to Philadelphia, where she has shown works at the CEC, Painted Bride, and Mascher Space Coop. Christina held a choreographic residency at the Atlantic Center For the Arts in 2005. She has been immensely challenged and inspired by performing in the works of Douglas Dunn, Ann Carlson, Headlong Dance Theater, Lisa Kraus, Tania Isaac, Anita Cheng, Shapiro & Smith and Jacek Luminski among others. A few of her non-dance related passions are film, cats and homemade pasta.

Mikronesia (a.k.a. Michael McDermott) is a producer, composer, musician and sound artist. Since 1999 he has been performing at theaters, clubs, parties and galleries along the U.S. East Coast as a multi-instrumentalist, laptop based performer and DJ. Mikronesia has been doing collaborative production and performance, concentrating on lending his ambient and DSP skills to artists from all musical genres. His main group, Gemini Wolf, is a seven piece electronic/chamber/rock band for which Mikronesia plays keyboards, laptop and arranges, including traditional rock instrumentation and a string trio. Mikronesia is an original member of the multi-disciplinary improvisation music/dance ensemble Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd. He has also worked with modern classical music collectives like Arts in Motion and The Philadelphia Composers Forum. In April 2007, he was part of a deep listening ensemble with Pauline Oliveros who performed at the Annenberg Center for The Performing Arts in Sound Exchange 2007. Mikronesia has released two albums with ambient label Gears of Sand. Tissue Paper Ghosts (2006), is an ethereal glitch album about the psychic remains of a car crash and Iris Or Comfortable Too (2007) is a breath taking work of minimalist piano and warm electronics.

John Phillips is an intermedia artist. His work has included interactive sound installations both with Carolyn Healy and solo, audio-visual performances, audio tape pieces for dance and theater venues, international electronic art festivals and conferences, and on nationally broadcast New American Radio programs. His work has been supported by numerous commissions and grants including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Location of Mascher Dance Coop:

Getting to Mascher on the El: Take the A Train (Market-Frankford Line heading East) to the Berks Street stop (one stop north of Girard). Walk one block south on Front Street (under the El). Turn right on Montgomery Avenue, then take the first left onto Howard Street. Walk one block south on Howard Street and turn right on Cecil B. Moore Ave. Walk one block west - building is on corner of Mascher & Cecil B. Moore. Entrance is on Cecil B. Moore.

Show Times for the Next Two Weeks: