Tallinna Ülikooli Kunstide Instituudi Koreograafia osakonna sümpoosioni etendusõhtu:
ISABELLE KIROUAC, REBECCA PAPPAS, CID PEARLMAN, ALEXIS STEEVES, FINE5, ELO UNT

Isabelle Kirouac
Biography
Isabelle Kirouac is a dancer and physical performer born in Quebec, Canada. Her work draws its inspiration from Contact Improvisation, butoh, performance art, low-tech video, experimental music and northern studies. Imprinted by her studies of improvisation and participatory work, she is interested in minimal dances that speak clearly and cultivate presence and connections. Over the last years, Isabelle has been performing and teaching internationally with The Carpetbag Brigade Physical Theatre, best known for its acrobatic stilt dramas, and Body Research, a company crossing the boundaries between theatre, dance, and self-exploration, using the disciplined study of Contact Improvisation as one of its main tools. She participated to numerous festivals, such as the Forum International de Las Culturas de Monterrey (Mexico), The Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), Danse Encore (Canada)(...), and collaborated with Diodramas (Quebec), Superamas (France/Austria), Flam Chen (Arizona), Rumblepeg (California), Felix Ruckert (Berlin), film/installation artists Daichi Saito and Karl Lemieux (Double Negative Collective, Montreal), and the percussionist Chris Cogburn (No Idea Festival, Texas).
Project description
The Cryonic Woman is a poetic performance installation exploring the quest of immortality of a Northern woman and pushing the boundaries between real and imagined. As to be remembered, to become immortal, projected images and personal information about us multiply online. Imprinting memories as a way to defeat our ephemeral nature, fame slowly replaces religion. Blurring the lines between real and imagined, which layers of us can still be us? "If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present." The Cryonic Woman represents the plenitude and the solitude of the North: "Everywhere, a huge nowhere." In this landscape, we are looking further than ourselves, into ourselves and out of ourselves, to find what we are missing, what we can only find in extreme solitude. The Cryonic Woman has been created in Montreal (Canada) in 2009, with the collaboration of 2boys.tv, OBORO New Media Lab and Studio 303. This multimedia performance integrates live performance, sounds, objects and video-projections.

Rebecca Pappas
Biography
From 1997 to 2001 Rebecca Pappas attended Connecticut College where she studied dance under Dan Wagoner and Jeremy Nelson. Upon graduation Pappas moved to Oakland, CA where she began choreographing under the name Pappas and Dancers. There she created 12 original works and was presented at venues including The Yerba Buena Gardens, ODC Theater, The Cowell Theater, and Theater Artaud. Her company also appeared in the Monterey Dance Festival, Westwave/Summerfest, The Underserved at ODC, The Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and twice at the Women on the Way Festival. During this time she developed a style whose hallmark was delicate, self-contained movement worlds and idiosyncratic gesture. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2006, she has been well-received by critics and audiences alike, and Sara Wolf of the Los Angeles Times recently referred to her work as "mesmerizing" and "compelling." Iterations of Monster have been presented in California, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, and New York at venues including The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Connecticut College, and Movement Research at Judson Church. Monster is reflective of P and D's interest in approaching the body as an archive for physical and social histories. In researching Monster Pappas traveled to Tel Aviv where she served as Barak Marshall's choreographic assistant during the Bridge Choreographic Dialogues Program. In addition she has been a rehearsal assistant for Melanie Rios Glazer at the Wooden Floor and has performed for artists including Victoria Marks, Alma Esperanza Cunningham, Rachael Lincoln, and Erica Shuch. Pappas' work has received choreographic residencies at Yaddo, Dragon's Egg and Shotwell Studios, and funding from the Clorox Company Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Mellon Committee for Research on the Holocaust in American and World Culture.
Project Description
Rebecca Pappas will present "Thumbnail," a solo excerpt from Monster. Monster, a quartet that excavates the corporeal legacy of the Holocaust and explores the way history is layered onto the contemporary Jewish body in Diaspora. The piece begins with an invocation of names and gestures meant to perform "The Holocaust Effect," Ernst van Alphen's theory that certain tropes: lists of name, catalogs of faces, train tracks etc. will inevitably remind viewers of the Holocaust. From there it goes on to look at how memorial culture, historical memory, and cultural trauma are accumulated on and form the Jewish body or that of any "victimized" group. In the piece the dancer's bodies are constantly shape shifting- alternately becoming monsters, memorializers, victims and victimizers as they try on various physicalities. Monster is a danced intervention within an official "Jewish history" that draws a straight line of justification between the devastation of the Holocaust and the brutality of Israel and a clear delineation between the victims and the victimizers. Pappas will also present a performed paper that traces the development of the piece and its historical and artistic source material. This lecture contextualizes the work and examines other works by artists grappling with the contemporary legacy of the Holocaust, Jewish history, and the body including Adi Ness and Christian Boltanski.

Cid Pearlman
Biography
Cid Pearlman is currently a Fulbright Scholar (academic year 2009- 2010), teaching at Tallinn University and collaborating with Estonian dance artists. Her work has been presented by numerous venues including Joyce SoHo (New York City), the Getty Center (Los Angeles), Theater Artaud (San Francisco) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego). From 1991-1999 she was the artistic director of San Francisco's critically acclaimed Nesting Dolls. In 1999 Pearlman relocated to Los Angeles, establishing herself as an independent choreographer and producer. Her most recent collaborations have been with composers Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of Kronos Quartet, and Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven. In addition to her own works, Pearlman has choreographed for film, opera and theater. Her evening length dance, "High Fall," won the 2002 Lester Horton Award for Visual Design, and 2006's "small variations," was nominated for two Horton Awards. Pearlman received both her BA in World Arts and Cultures, and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing her graduate studies, she moved to Santa Cruz, California in 2006, and teaches in the Dance Department at Cabrillo College. Her work has received support from the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the San Francisco Art Commission, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the American Composers Forum and the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County. Pearlman will premiere the works she is creating with Estonian dancers at Kanuti Gildi Saal, 25-26 May and at NOTAFE 12-17 July.
Project Description
Cid Pearlman will present excerpts from "This is what we do in winter" and "catch-as-catchcan." The first work is a quintet, which was created during Pearlman's Fulbright year in Estonia. The second work was developed in 2006 with dancers from Los Angeles, and will be performed by 3rd year BA students from the Choreography Department at Tallinn University. Pearlman will also present a paper on her approach to choreographing difference in 2006's "small variations."

Rain Saukas & Alexis Steeves
Biographies
Rain Saukas is a professional dancer and graphic designer based in Tallinn. He is currently performing for Jenni Kivela and Cid Pearlman. He will travel to Korea in June with Fine5 Tantsuteater with whom he has studied and performed since 2002.
Alexis Steeves is professional dancer / teacher and massage therapist. She is currently dancing for Cid Pearlman and choreographing her own work inspired by life in Estonia. In 2009 she choreographed Siret Paju's "Ei teki ega kao" in the Hiiumaa Hea Energia Festival. Recently
transitioning from New York to Tallinn she teaches dance at Tallinn University and has opened Body of Knowledge - Movement and Massage. Contact: bodyofknowledge.edicypages.com.
Project Description
Title: how easily these accidents
Choreographed and Performed by Rain Saukas and Alexis Steeves
Sound by Alexis Steeves
We are engaged in the most basic experiment that presents itself when two body / minds, two cultures, two sets of experiences merge and create. Here is the raw beginning of serious play which aims to unwind and portray assumptions, expectations, negotiations and authentic
connections. The sound score anchoring this premiere collaboration was created from the original soundtrack of James Ivory's film "A Room with a View". A close adaptation of E.M. Forster's title novel which narrates cultural clashes of gender, class and even "the things of the universe" with critical humor.

Fine 5
Biography
Tiina Ollesk & Rene Nõmmik - Fine 5 Dance Theatre (www.fine5.ee) is one of the bestknown and the most influential independent contemporary dance companies in Estonia. It
was founded in 1992 when five dancers from "Nordstar" dance theatre formed their own group. In early 90-ies their work was influenced by traditional modern dance techniques, since the end of 90-ies the working methods have changed, combining various approaches to human movement and dance as an art. Since 1997, the key figures of the theatre have been Rene Nõmmik and Tiina Ollesk.
Fine 5 has worked with many respected choreographers including Tommi Kitti (Finland), Matteo Moles (Belgium) etc. Fine 5 is the laureate of several international dance contests and festivals. The company has performed in USA, France, Italy, Sweden, Cyprus, Finland, Poland, Baltic States, Russia and Belorussia. The company has successfully performed at the internationally well-known Birgitta Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Their choreography for C.Orff "Carmina Burana" (in the program since 2005) will be presented again in Birgitta 2010. In 2003 Fine 5 received the Philip Morris Dance Award in Estonia; in 2009, the Estonian Theater Award in the Dance productions category for "PHASES" "an enriching dialogue between live music and choreography, artistically convincing presentation of a topical subject and continuity in developing its own style and training new generations." A former actress, and Associate Professor at Estonian Music and Theater Academy, Maret Mursa graduated from the Alexander Technique Institute of Finland (MSTAT, 1999), working on the doctoral thesis "The use of conscious inhibition in the work of a performing artist."
Project Description
Excerpt from "4 vaadet" (work in progress)
Once again, after 20 years of practice as dancers, choreographers and teachers we took time to research what we do and why we do it. How lived lives and gathered experience helps (or doesn't) to motivate doing it and sharing it. In the final version of the piece (premier October 2010) we will reflect on the issues of a "live" dance and identity exploring four different ideas - identities in the same frame of set choreography - to create new and different "live" journeys every time.
We see creating a new work as a journey with or without audience. This journey explores the grey area between clear images and bodily action, physicality and emotion in partnership and vulnerability. Today the ‘live" aspect has almost become an obsession, there are many illusions of simultaneous encounters with the outside world. Digitalization of everyday life and communication creates a longing for the "real," the unique event that happens only once, and is live..

Elo Unt
Biography
Elo Unt graduated from the choreography department of the University of Tallinn. She works in E.T.A. Dance School as dance teacher and choreographer since 2003. She has created short numbers and dance productions in quantities that have also reached the School Dance Festival's Final Concert every year, and merited special prizes as well as two Laureate titles. Elo's choreographical language is contemporary but recognizably Estonian, very dynamic and musical and her productions are always crowned with a humorous point. The current performance is Elo's first full-length dance performance.
Estonian Dance Agency Dance School is for children and young aged 4-25 years. Altogether
more than 400 pupils study at our school annually. The school's preparatory stage is the Kaie Kõrb Ballet Studio where children aged 4-11 years study (main subjects being classical dance, acrobatics, rythmics, creative dance and contemporary dance). The ballet studio was established in 1999.
The main stage at school is E.T.A. Studio that was established in autumn 2004 with the goal of training young dancers aged 12-18 with a versatile dance technique during the six-year-long study period and who have the wish to continue studying dance at higher education institutions. Study is based on classical, contemporary and jazz dance techniques. In addition to offering professional dance education, Estonian Dance Agency Dance School has taken upon its mission to ensure dancers with outputs such as various dance projects and concerts that would bring more pupils to develop their physical and creative capabilities through the techniques of the art of dance. Youth group Twister was established in spring 2007 and the Youth Dance Theatre in spring 2009.
Project Description
Dance performance „ESTONIANS' FOUR O-s"- Otsides (Looking), Oodates (Waiting), Olles (Being) and Ohkides (Moaning)..."
Idea and story: Elo Unt and Kristjan Kurm
Direction, choreography and costumes: Elo Unt
Performers: Mirjam Luhakooder, Siim Adamson, Liisa Laine, Greta Raidma, AnneÖösike Niit, Ingmar Jõela
Music mix and sound effects: Külli Tüli
Production: Jane Miller-Pärnamägi
Performance makes use of music by authors: Mari Kalkun, Paabel, Ursula
Premiere: August 7, 2009 in Kingston, Jamaica
Duration: 30 min
Otsides - looking for something, Oodates - waiting for somebody, wanting to be - Olla - somebody and thus Ohkides - moaning through life - from day to day, from evening to morning, from yesterday to today, from today to tomorrow, from tomorrow to the day after, etc.
This is a story about us, it is Estonian through and through. You wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and you see an Estonian. You go to bed in the evening, wake up the next day, look in the mirror again - nothing has changed. In the meantime, you take a sauna, scrub the dirt off and put on foreign clothes but the mirror still shows the same Estonian - you take a deep breath, moan and again tomorrow you will try to change something that is unchangeable. The performance tries to decipher the essence of an Estonian, portraying his genetical complexes and behaviors. Four O-s or O4 would be like the genetic formula of the essence of an Estonian. An Estonian is a workaholic, a party animal who has no sense of moderation in anything. Therefore, an Estonian is unable to love or feel joy and is constantly thriving towards obtaining things that are newer and brighter - it's never enough, it's never good enough. As if spending the whole life looking for something that does not exist, or wanting to be somebody who you are not able to be. That's why all of our mornings are „blue Mondays" regardless the century we are living in. Nevertheless, an Estonian is quite a sweet creature who, at the end of the day, still crawls into his cave and settles down. Even if the cave is small, it is his own and that's what is important. The performance has been put together in summer 2009 during the time of the jubilee Song and Dance Celebration. The performance is an expansion of the short number „Puu taga..." (Behind the tree...) which brought the E.T.A. Dance Studio the Laureate title at the School Dance Festival 2009 (Koolitants in origin) in the contemporary dance category. The performance's initial version premiered on August 7, 2009 in Kingston, Jamaica, in the frames of the international dance conference where it received a storming applause. In conclusion, a short quote from Postimees daily by Mihkel Mutt (literary critic) that was published on July 15, 2009, around the time that the performance was being finalized: „We are no tough free lords or bourgeois of the tenth generation, no romantic knights or great pirates who some of us have started to identify as in the meantime;, we are valets and saloon-keepers, parish clerks at best. We are the people whose inner backbone and greatest treasure is to come together after a long days work, blow the horn and sing, and thus cleanse and steel oneself."
Good luck in looking in the mirror!
Kristjan Kurm
(director of Estonian Dance Agency)

Sümpoosioni ajakava: http://www.saal.ee/event/203/
Toimub: Tallinna Ülikooli Kunstide Instituudis / Lai 13 & Kanuti Gildi SAALis / Pikk 20
Registreerumine: N 13.05 10:00-12:00, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Pikk 20, Tallinn
Lisainfo ja eelregistreerimine: Heili Einasto heiein @ tlu.ee või Cid Pearlman cid.pearlman @ fulbrightmail.org
Foto: L.Wu
Toetajad: Kultuurkapital, Tallinn Ülikool, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, U.S.A saatkond Tallinnas
Sissepääs:
Pass: 300.- tagab sissepääsu kõigile üritustele kolmel päeval eelregistreerumisel
Etendusõhtud 13+14.04: 100.- õhtu müügil Piletilevis
Tudengitööd 14.04: 25.- saadaval pool tundi enne algust kohapeal