Avy K Productions

Participants 

Erika Tsimbrovsky (director/choreographer/dancer) is an innovator in the field of improvised dance performance. Born in Kazakhstan, she studied modern and contemporary dance in Belarus, Moscow, and Amsterdam. In Israel, where she lived for twelve years, she co-founded the award-winning experimental performance group EVM Laboratories to research the interaction between diverse media structures and to develop improvisational performance techniques. During this period of collaborative research, Tsimbrovsky’s audio-visual-kinetic approach to performance evolved. Erika now teaches and performs in San Francisco. 

Kira Maria Kirsch (dancer) was born in East-Berlin and studied modern dance and pedagogy at the Conservatory of Vienna with scholarships from t a n z p o o l and the Austrian Arts Council. In addition to being a dancer for Erika Tsimbrovsky/Avy K Productions, Kira works with San Francisco choreographer Sarah Shelton Mann and has performed internationally with Pipaluk Supernova/Half Machine, PARTS, Anna Tenta, Frey Faust's ABCD Collective, and others. Kira teaches contemporary dance technique and Contact Improvisation in the US and Europe.

Andrew Ward (dancer) grew up in Berkeley and began dancing at Berkeley High School under the guidance of Linda Carr. He continued to dance at UC Berkeley while studying Peace and Conflict Studies. Andrew now dances with the Joe Goode Performance Group and with Scott Wells and Dancers.

Sean Feit (musician/composer/dancer) is multi-instrumentalist working primarily in movement-based theater.  A Bay Area native, he was educated at Calarts and Cornell.  He co-directed Rujeko Performance Collaboration from 1998-2004, and has worked in the Bay Area with Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero, Scott Wells, Angus Balbernie, Body Cartography, Seth Eisen, and others. In 2006-7, he was the solo instrumentalist for the critically acclaimed Circo Zero piece, Sol Niger.  Sean teaches piano, theory & songwriting, as well as Yoga and Buddhist Meditation.

Laura Maguire (concept-monger) came to the US from Ireland to study Philosophy. She received her PhD from Stanford University, where she currently teaches. Laura has studied various forms of improvisational dance, including Argentine Tango and Contact Improvisation. She participated in Anna Halprin's 2006 reconstruction of Ten Myths and she performed in Halprin's Awaken: Dancing With the Rodins. She has been with Avy K Productions since 2007.

Vadim Puyandaev (visual artist/performer) has worked as a painter, sculptor, and designer for over twenty years and has been participating in multi-media dance performances since 1998. His fine art has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Russia, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, France, Spain, Canada, and the US. Puyandaev had also produced numerous pieces of monumental art, including a commission to design a bridge over the Red Sea in Israel. With Tsimbrovsky, he is a founding member of the creative collectives EVM Laboratories (Israel) and Avy K Productions (US), dedicated to investigating what emerges in performance at the nexus of different genres.

Suzanne Lappas (dancer) is a professional dancer and teacher enthusiastically engaged in learning diverse approaches to movement and the means of inspiring it.  As a performer, Suzanne can be seen on stages, screens, and outdoors with MotionLab, Scott Wells and Dancers, Limbinal, Erika Tsimbrovsky/Avy K Productions, and the Lisa Townsend Company.  She was delighted to make her debut this fall with the companies Kunst-Stoff and Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts.   

Albert Mathias (musician/composer) has been creating music for movement in San Francisco since 1991. A multi-disciplinary musician, his focus is on accompaniment, composition, and sound design for dance/theater, CD, and film. Since 1998, he has been the Music Director for Motion-Lab, a perpetual experiment of dance training, choreography, improvisation, and performance, with dancer/choreographer Kathleen Hermesdorf. He is also the primary percussionist for international touring/recording artists LiveHuman, an improvisation-based trio.   

Daniel Bear Davis (dancer) is co-director of Santa Cruz based dance theatre company Shah and Blah Productions and is a member of the physical theater group The Carpetbag Brigade. He has performed internationally and across the US with Katsura Kan, The Body Cartography Project, Half Machine, Felix Ruckert, Wire Monkey Dance, and others. Daniel teaches Contact Improvisation and has a private bodywork practice. He is excited to be working for the first time with Avy K Productions on Scrap Soup. 
 

Ruslan Belorusets (video artist) was born in Ukraine where he studied applied math and visual art. Since he moved to the Bay Area, he became interested in modern videography and produced a number of live performances, including Soltice celebrations in the tradition of Eastern Slavic tribes. Currently, his passion is working on graphic representations of social networks and teaching Yoga.

                                                                                                                                                 

This performance has been made possible by grants from Theatre Bay Area in partnership with Dancers’ Group, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.