ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Ko Murobushi (Co-Director, Choreographer & Dancer)

Ko Murobushi is one of the most acclaimed butoh artists of our time. Murobushi trained and performed for many years with Tatsumi Hijikata, the acknowledged founder of butoh. Murobushi was also a founding member of the ground breaking and renowned Dairakudakan Company. His influential group Ariadone introduced Europe to butoh in 1978. He continues to explore the discipline and develop as a solo performer. Currently based in Japan, he tours internationally throughout Europe and South America. In addition to his career as a performing artist, Murobushi also trained as a yamabushi (ascetic mountain priest) and has held a lifelong interest in Ikkyu.

Shinichi Iova-Koga (Co-Director, Choreographer & Dancer)

Shinichi Iova-Koga, originally a photographer, filmmaker and theater director, founded in 1998 the performance company inkBoat, whose productions examine, dissect and intentionally blur the lines between stage, aural and visual media to uproot and communicate stories contained within the body.

He and his wife Dana Iova-Koga founded inkGround, a studio in rural Northern California, to continue the exploration of stories through the land, utilizing the surrounding forests, rivers and ocean-side as new media for the life/dance investigation.

Shinichi has collaborated intensively with cokaseki (Germany: 2004-present), Yumiko Yoshioka and TEN PEN CHii (Germany: 1996-2001), Do Theatre (Russia: 1997-present), Minako Seki (Germany: 2001-2005), Shadowlight Theatre (SF: 1993-1997), Degenerate Art Ensemble (Seattle: 2001-present), and often creates improvisation evenings with longtime production collaborators Yuko Kaseki, Sten Rudstrøm and Cassie Terman.

Shinichi was named one of the "25 to Watch" in 2008 by Dance Magazine and awarded a "Goldie" award by the SF Bay Guardian in 2007. Shinichi and Yuko Kaseki won "Outstanding Performance" from the Isadora Duncan Awards (Izzie) for the production of Ame to Ame in 2004 and the Izzie award for "Visual Design" for inkBoat's Heaven's Radio in 2003.

Dana Iova-Koga (Dancer)

Dana Iova-Koga began her intensive study of dance at New York University's Experimental Theater Wing, under teachers Tamar Rogoff and Mary Overlie. As a student at NYU she performed in productions directed by Annie B Parsons & Paul Lazar (Little, Big) and Maureen Flemming (Mondala at the 92nd Street YMCA.) She went on to tour Eastern Europe with La MaMa's Great Jones Repertory Company in a dance opera version of "Oedipus".

Her exploration of dance deepened when she joined Min Tanaka's farm and dance company, Tokason, in the countryside of Japan in 1997. From 1997-2002, she danced in dozens of performances under Tanaka's direction. Performances played in theaters large and small in Japan, the United States and Europe, as well as in rice fields, forests and museums.

From 2003-2005, Iova-Koga continued to explore the body in relation to nature, performing solo in Firefall (2003), drop deep suite (2005) and May's Landing (2005). In September 2005 she performed in Rose Colored Mountain as part of a site-specific event directed by Shinichi Iova-Koga in the wilderness of Montana.

Dana danced in c(H)ord, her first inkBoat production, in April, 2008 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

She is co-founder of inkGround, a place where dance and it's relationship to nature are studied.

Sherwood Chen (Dancer)

Sherwood Chen has worked with artists including Anna Halprin, Oguri, Sara Shelton Mann, David Szlasa, and was a resident member of Min Tanaka's performance collective Maijuku in rural Japan. Chen facilitates Body Weather Laboratory movement research training originally developed by Tanaka, and is Associate Director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. Recently, he was a participating artist for the CESTA Arts Festival of International Interdisciplinary Collaborations in the Czech Republic, and was a San Francisco Foundation Fellow.

Allen Willner (Light Designer)

Allen travels the country lighting shows for the Music Groups Sleepytime Gorllia Museum and Carla Kihlstedt's Two Foot Yard. Allen has designed lights and sound for many artists from the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City including Richard Schechner, Karen Finley, Joe Goode Performance Group, The Billy Nayer Show, Kenn Watt's 5th Floor, Shinichi Iova-Koga, The Dresden Dolls, Rennie Harris, Kim Epifano, Angus Balbernie, Lunatique Fantastique, , Kim Epifano, Scott Wells & Dancers, Anne Bleuthenthal, Dance Brigade, World Arts West & RAPT.

Carla Kihlstedt (Musician)

Carla has played the violin for most of her years on this planet. It is the vehicle that has brought her through many approaches to music-making from her beginnings in the classical world, through various music schools - Peabody Institute, Oberlin and San Francisco Conservatories - and on to her present hydra-headed musical life. She is a composer, an improviser, a singer, and a member of several ongoing projects, including 2 Foot Yard, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat, The Book of Knots, and Causing A Tiger, each of which has its own very particular and distinct logic.

She has written scores for dance and theater companies (inkBoat, The Joe Goode Performance Group, Flyaway Productions), and on her new label, 12 Cups, has just released a CD of several such scores written with Matthias Bossi and Dan Rathbun (Ravish and Other Tales for the Stage).

ARTIST INFORMATION