Wednesday Dance Jam upcoming Musical Lineup

Ariel Brink
Ariel Brink has performed in Taiwanese night markets, Toronto subway stations, downtown cafés and stages, in living rooms everywhere, and regularly at the Wednesday Jam since its inception. His Poet Lights rolled poetry (www.poetlights.com) was featured in The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, his children’s novel “The Riverside Rebellion” is awaiting publication, and his band MurMur (www.myspace.com/murmursongs) plays regular gigs in venues around Toronto. In addition to occasionally deejaying Ecstatic Dances and teaching Contact Improv, he teaches guitar, and works as a tutor and an elementary school substitute teacher.  An expressive artist at heart, he specializes in improvisational dance, music, and writing, but his two greatest artistic loves are Contact Dance and songwriting. 

Links: www.myspace.com/murmursongs




Jeff Burke
Jeff Burke Toronto's premier multi stylistic Bassoon player. Jeff Burke (Bassoon, Penny Whistle) has been playing the bassoon in numerous Toronto groups and in various music styles for nearly 30 years. A founding member of the  90's Toronto folk-rock group The Shadow Puppets.  While he is trained and accomplished in modern and traditional forms, Jeff is also a master of improvisation in many styles. The Subtonic Monks group (improvised world-beat), Belladonna & The Awakening (Hip Hop), Mystic Rhythm (Traditional World forms and fusions), Friendly Rich & the Lollipop People (Avant Pop Cabaret Orchestra)  and the Sun Ra Arkestra are  some of the groups Jeff has brought his special Bassoon flavoured extemporized stylings to. Jeff Burke has performed with numerous performers, among them. Over the last 20 years Jeff has played for many forms of dancing: medieval and renaissance dances, traditional English Morris, Irish, Breton, Latvian and Macedonian Folk dances, Middle eastern and Modern dance. He has had the pleasure of collaborating and improvising with various dancers and choreographers. Jeff Burke has just come out with a new CD "The Black CD" the mixture of Christmas and non-seasonal originals with a improvised twist. Sometimes you may find him playing in the subway combining Jazz with Irish jigs, Zepplin, and Rage against the Machine, Folk and Metallica in his own unique way.

Links:
http://i5.tinypic.com/20rpit5.jpg
http://i5.tinypic.com/20rpj5f.jpg




Jennifer Gillmor

Dan Goldman

“combining avant-garde sound collage with the melodies and emotional forthrightness of pop, Dan Goldman's Through A Revolution is one of 2004's most intriguing Canadian albums."
-Michael White, The Westender, Vancouver

Singer-songwriter Dan Goldman grew up in Montreal and moved to Toronto in 1998 shortly after graduating with distinction from Concordia University's Jazz program, where he studied mainly under guitarist and composer, Roddy Ellias. Shortly after relocating to Toronto, Dan headed-up kitchenmusik, an experimental chamber-pop group for which he was the principal songwriter.

Dan also played guitar and sang mainly in the bands of Mia Sheard, Justin Haynes and Rob Piilonen – all of whom had a major impact on Dan’s writing and improvisation skills. In spring of 2004, Dan released his self-produced debut CD entitled Through a Revolution, a collection of songs, which featured Haynes, Sheard Owen Pallett, and Susanna Hood, among others. Since its release, the album has garnered many a fan and generated critical praise nation-wide. The Globe and Mail called it “inventive, witty and intimate;” Hamilton's View magazine said that “Through a Revolution collects ten masterfully-built little ditties...” and demonstrates “songwriting at its finest;” while Calgary's Fast Forward writes that the recording “lulls the listener into a gentle state of musical bliss..."

Dan has composed scores for the Corpus Dance Company and for the Toronto Dance Theatre, as well as engineering and producing recordings for Snowblink, Breaking Sounds and Jack Breakfast. He’s toured the UK, Ireland and Canada with Mia Sheard; across Canada several times and the US both solo and with his musical partner, Snowblink; he's performed on numerous recordings by artists such as Veda Hille, Mia Sheard, Beyond The Pale, and has shared stages with kindred spirits Veda Hille, Kurt Swinghammer, Bob Snider, Martin Tielli, John Southworth, Great Aunt Ida, and Snailhouse.

Dan has recently finished recording a CD of new songs featuring the St.Kitts string quartet arranged




Luciana Porto Goncalves
Luciano Porto a drummer, multi-instrumentalist, Luciano also has departed on the path of a composer/song-writer. Born and raised in the rural interior of Brazil he experienced from a young age the richness of culture, music and nature abundant in the surroundings of Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. Luciano’s childhood was inspired by his father’s acordion playing, who also composed several unpublished classical pieces, as well as his mother’s visual art. Although he did not take music seriously as a child, the musical seeds planted came to germinate in his late-teenagehood after a radical change of life onto Canadian soil. In 1992 Luciano moved to Toronto from Brasilia at 16 years of age and started to gain access to school band instruments brought home by his younger brother. After trying out various wind instruments he decided to study classical guitar and made his debut music performance with the University of Toronto Guitar Ensemble in 1995. Following his love of nature he studied Environmental Science, only to use up all his spare time playing and studying music, on the rich artsy environment of the University of Guelph. For these past ten years he has been consistently studying privately and playing independently instruments such as his dad’s old clarinet, tenor saxophone, guitar, flutes, African djembe, Brazilian percussion instruments, drum kit and later conga and the acordion. Due to chronic wrist problems Luciano was forced to diversify all his efforts, and as a consequence developed an aptitude to practicing various different instruments and music forms. His main passion, afro-percussion, came to being after he first met African drummers during travels in British Columbia, then went to Senegal and Morocco to investigate these passionate music traditions. In October 2002 Luciano discovered Aline Morale’s workshops on Maracatu drumming style and became an immediate addict, since then he has performed extensively with Maracatu Nunca Antes all over Southern Ontario. Presently, Luciano performs with several other bands in the GTA on a regular basis mostly as a drummer or percussionist, covering varied styles from rock/pop, oldies, blues, improv, to samba, Brazilian folk and Maracatu. He also recently started a project called Mulambo Groove, to feature his own compositions along side his three brothers who are also percussion and music students. In 2006 Luciano recorded the Dance of the Chakras with Ron Allen and released it in November.




Michelangelo Iaffaldano
Michelangelo Iaffaldano is a Toronto-based, Italian-born musician, instrument builder and visual artist who collaborates with many  musicians associated with AIM Toronto. He plays in the bands Odradek, Anamorphic Heat and Satanist Daycare, and leads AIM's Large Improvising Ensemble.

Link: http://www.aimtoronto.org

Ian Jamieson
Ian Jamieson is a guitarist, singer and composer from the Toronto area.  He is currently working as a band teacher with the Toronto District School Board, and works freelance as a musician for modern, contact and improv. dancers around the city. In 2006, his guitar work "In Dreams" was used by dancer/ choreographer Takako Segawa in a dance tour of Japan.  In 2003, Ian worked with an ensemble of international musicians at the Banff Centre for the Arts in a realization of his composition "Shore Pieces", created as part of a Master's of music composition obtained from York University.  When playing for the Toronto contact jam, Ian will be using electric and acoustic guitars with effects.

  

Nilan Perera
Nilan has been a consistent presence on the creative
music scene in Toronto, Canada since 1984.
Since then he has produced concerts and festivals in
Toronto, had a radio show at CIUT-FM for 16 years
(serving as Program Director and Station Manager as
well as other duties) as well  as being involved in
many of the cutting edge music, dance and interdisciplinary ensembles that have achieved recognition and notoriety in Toronto and beyond. He has performed and recorded with Jandek, Martin Tétreault, Susanna Hood, Vinnie Golia, Don Preston,
Sarah Peebles, David Toop, Roswell Rudd, Sumihisa Arima, John Butcher, Evan Parker, John Oswald, Michael Snow, Michael Ondaatje, Mary Margaret O'Hara, and Don Thompson. He has also a writer of reviews and articles for the
national music periodical: Exclaim!

Links:
www.humdansoundart.ca
www.sarahpeebles.net/smash

Kousha Nakhaei
Kousha Nakhaei is a violinist, improviser, and composer. He has studied improvisation, and classical performance, as well as Persian and South Indian musical traditions at York University where he graduated in 2005.  Also a Contact dancer Kousha has a strong interest in movement and exploring interdisciplinary creation. He has collaborated with several choreographers, dancers, poets and directors, such as Lucie Carmen Gregoire, Patty Powel, Tracey Norman, Roger Greenwald, and Jean-Michael Malpeux. He has performed at numerous venues in Toronto and many festivals including fFIDA International dance Festival, Toronto Street Festival, and Under The Azure Dome.Currently he keeps busy studying, performing and teaching.




Tim Posgate
The Tim Posgate Hornband has released its debut, self-titled CD featuring its newest member, American jazz-tuba legend and multi-instrumentalist Howard Johnson. (Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, John Lennon…) The Cd also features Howard on baritone saxophone and pennywhistle. () Leader, guitarist and primary composer Tim Posgate and trumpeter Lina Allemano have toured Canada extensively including work with Tim Posgate’s Jazzstory and were both recently nominated as top instrumentalists for Canada’s National Jazz Awards. Quinsin Nachoff is the fourth member playing tenor sax, clarinet and flute. Nachoff was the winner of Canada Council’s Jazz ID Competition as well as being a semi-finalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Tenor Sax Competition in Washington D.C. With only three horns and guitar this unique quartet creates a mélange of sound that will entertain and challenge the listener with it’s compositions drawing heavily on jazz, folk and “free improv” traditions. These three Canadians have all released numerous Cds as leaders as well as working with Joe Lovano, Don Byron, Steve Lacy, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Helias, Jim Black, and Jane Bunnett among others. Howard Johnson continues to perform with his popular tuba ensemble Gravity.

Links:
www.myspace.com/timposgatehornband
www.guildwoodrecords.com




Anthony Rapoport
Classical violist Tony Rapoport loves playing chamber music, especially with the Windermere String Quartet, now in its second season. One of the things that fascinates him about Contact is how much it has in common with chamber music: close physical and emotional interaction, trust... and he loves to improvise...

Link: www.windermere.braveform.com




David Sait
David Sait (1972), experimental guzheng artist and improviser from Brampton/Toronto, writes/records and performs on the long stringed Chinese zither (guzheng or zheng). David utilizes a variety of styles and disciplines crossing dysfunctional classical with avant garde and World music's. Sait brings a contemporary, free spirited mentality to this ancient instrument that dates back more than 3000 years paying respect to it's rich history, but honouring it by searching for a unique voice. His father was a jazz bandleader/composer/arranger, his grandmother a performing classical pianist. He is a member of AIMT (Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto) and the Guzheng One Club ( China ). A 20 year background in music studies, performance and recording balanced between guitar & guzheng. In performance and recording, David is a committed solo improviser, member of the duo project with Michael Keith: “CRACKER & SHOE” and eager to collaborate with any like-minded artists seeking limitless sounds.

Link: http://www.davidsait.com/

Oso Simple
Oso is a singer/songwriter born and raised in the cruel suburbs East of Toronto (Mua Ha Ha Ha!)  He has lived most of the last eight years in British Columbia re-learning and spending lots of time barefoot. Oso is a novice improv musician.  His first time playing music in this modality, for an audience, was at the Wednesday jam where he greatly enjoys dancing. A lover of natural landscapes and open spaces his improvisations tend towards the pretty and spacious, although, he does get darker and edgier if the mood strikes.  Using primarily guitar he adds digeridoo, penny whistle, harmonica and vocalizing to the mix. His approach to improvisation in music is much the same as his approach to contact dance - what can I do right now with what I have and how I feel?'

You can hear songs from his children's album at
http://www.squishybanana.com
and some songs from an upcoming folk album
that are in the works (in a less-than-polished form) at
http://myspace.com/ososimple




Bob Wiseman
Link:
http://www.bobwiseman.ca
www.myspace.com/bobwiseman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk6fYEQEC14