Wednesday Dance Jam upcoming Musical Lineup

Anne Bourne
Anne Bourne is interested in each musical expression being an experience of sonic activism, in the sense of resolution between tones,  people, and individual paradoxes, through listening.

Ariel Brink
Ariel Brink is the lead singer of The Dull-Eyed Llamas and the author of 147 songs.  He plays 13 musical instruments with varying degrees of ability, and has been improvising music for dancers for more than five years, most commonly at Kathleen Rea’s Wednesday Jam.  He is an avid Contact dancer; he also attends and occasionally deejays ecstatic dances.   Fascinated by the interplay between movement and music, Brink is also a dedicated improviser, in music, dance, and in his work as a substitute teacher and music therapist.  www.myspace.com/thedulleyedllamas 

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




Aviva Chernick

Aviva is a singer recording, performing and touring a fusion of World Music styles while singing in Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish and English.  Aviva’s first solo album In the Sea, an eclectic mix of World Cabaret music, features Toronto Jazz and Improvisational greats Tania Gill and Andrew Downing. Aviva recently released her second album Under the Canopy (a collection of Jewish love songs) with The Huppah Project and in March 2009, she will join her bandmates from the Global Fusion ensemble Jaffa Road as they release the project’s first recording at The Lula Lounge.  Aviva is also a Cantorial Soloist, lending voice to Jewish Spiritual practice throughout Toronto. www.avivachernick.com
http://www.avivachernick.com/projects.html




Isla Craig

Isla Craig is a song crafter of smooth sailing melody and trance like meanderings.  Inspiration comes to her in the form of afghan geometry, early vocal music and R & B  listening/imitation, and an all encompassing habitation within a world wraught in  textile wizardry and colour explosion.  While she is the main instrument of her own creations, she is blessed enough to be aided by her fantastically talented music friends Colin Fisher (guitar), Brandon Valdivia (drums/ percussion), and Mike Smith (bass). 

Isla is currently working with Sandro Perri to coalesce her analog representation that she hopes will be ready for an early fall release.   




Daniela Gesundheit

Daniela Gesundheit’s studied in composition with Anthony Braxton, and in South Indian Classical Vocals, her experience with performance-art and dance troupes in Los Angeles, and her published poetry bring complexity to the deceptively simple quiet folk-song form. Daniela has toured throughout the US and Canada, playing a breadth of venues, from small house concerts to opening for Patti Smith and Rogue Wave. Her back-up band has had several ncarnations, the first of which, in 2005, included MGMT as boy backup singers. To record Long Live, she enlisted Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Brightblack Morning Light) and Toronto’s David Travers-Smith. Sean Moeller at Daytrotter described Snowblink’s “gorgeous words... terrifyingly beautiful... lines of a story that appear before us as startlingly as new colours or languages would.” Read more about Daniela online at
www.snowblink.org

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

Susanna Hood
Susanna Hood is a compelling and virtuosic performer in dance and music. She began her career as a member of the Toronto Dance Theatre from 1991 through 1995. Independently, she has performed the works of various Toronto choreographers, created singing/dancing roles with Autumn Leaf Productions, acted on film for filmmaker Philip Barker, created music for the dance works of Louis Laberge Coté, Rebecca Todd and Eryn Dace Trudell, collaborated extensively with composers John Oswald and Nilan Perera, and performed widely as an improvisor both in dance and music. Her collaborative projects as well as her own choreography and music compositions have been presented throughout Toronto, nationally, and internationally on stage and in film since 1991. In the fall of 1998, she was one of two recipients of the K.M. Hunter Emerging Artists Awards in Dance.

Her first self-produced show, The Ides of May at Myth Production in May 1997, demonstrated a commitment to explore and present work that merged disciplines. Premiered in this show was her first substantial solo, Four ways of approaching a door
(“a kinetic, multi-layered, voice-driven solo” – NOW Magazine), which combined her talents as a choreographer, composer, and performer and marked the beginning of her development of a language of physical sound.

In 2000, Susanna founded hum to house her dance-based interdisciplinary vision of performance. Under the umbrella of hum, she produced her first full evening production, still, “a must see event – as precious, as rare, as that proverbial pot of gold” (Globe & Mail), which premiered at Artword Theatre in Toronto in November 2000 to outstanding critical acclaim.

Both in and out of association with the company, Susanna has been actively involved in collaborative interdisciplinary creation projects exploring the interaction of movement, sound and varying forms of interactive technology. Such collaborations have included feel HEaR SEEcret with performance artist Katherine Duncanson, musician/composer Nilan Perera, and electronics artist Jim Ruxton at Toronto’s Free Fall Festival 2002; Spinvoler with composer John Oswald at music festivals in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and Albi 2002/03; and Liminal Projects with the team of musician/composer/visual artists Jackson 2bears and Tom Kuo, and visual artist Tanya Doody throughout Ontario and British Columbia 2001/02.

Links:
http://www.humdansoundart.ca/company.html

Blake Howard
Blake started his career in a cupboard under the sink and has since emerged as an  empathetic drummer as well as a slightly skewed composer. He was 14 when he first began accompanying dance classes for susan bush haberman’s dance workshop in alliston, Ontario and after moving to Toronto in 1991 he fell in with a continually foliating group of musicians known as GUH. He was also afforded the opportunity to study with Master drummer Jim Blackley,  investigating just what was running through those drainpipes in the kitchen. It has been his good fortune to have worked with choeographers William yong, tara blue, leslie linsay, jen bell, Julia aplin and jenn Goodwin participating in fFIDA (’94, ‘98) and Dusk dances(00, 01, 04, 05) and in the fall of 2004 he accompanied Christopher house and the company of the Toronto dance theatre on their tour of western Canada . I wonder what he’s doing now?

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

Rob Piilonen
Sudbury native Rob Piilonen is a flute player, composer, improvisor, and producer. Classical and Jazz training prepared him for a career performing in many different contexts. From playing with DJs and pop, rock, and funk bands, to New Music, to hardcore free improvisation.


Links
http://creativecollision.org/index.php

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