artistic director - Rachel Cohen
collaborators
Chris
Becker
Composer Chris Becker (www.beckermusic.com)
lives and works in New York City composing, arranging, and recording music
for a wide variety of solo and collaborative projects. He has composed music
for dance, film, and mixed-media installations. His music has premiered in
clubs, galleries, and music and dance festivals across the country. He has
received grants from The Louisiana Division of the Arts and The American Society
of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP). His music is published by Beckeresque
Music (ASCAP).
Becker’s
work utilizes the recording studio as both an instrument and a means of “notating
to tape.” Working with a pool of rock, jazz, classical, and avant-garde
musicians Becker takes real time performances and recombines them into recorded
works that bring together the energy of live performance with the compositional
gesture of detailed editing and mixing. “Found sounds” such as
subways, birds, and household appliances are also a part of his compositional
palette, bringing together the techniques of musique concrète with
contemporary digital recording.
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Agata
Olek
Agata Olek (www.agataolek.com ) graduated
from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland with a degree in cultural studies.
In New York, she has designed sets and costumes for dance, theater, and film,
including for Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Shua Group, racoco productions,
Anita Cheng, Kelly Kocinski, Ariane Anthony and Company, The Construction
Company, overconfident wannabe productions, NasaDiva Productions, Virginia
Valdes (video), Layard Thomson, and Sacura Shimada.
Her
unique crocheted wearable sculptures premiered at the Williamsburg Arts and
Historical Society’s Surrealist Fashion Show in October 2003. In July
2004, her work was exhibited at the 5BE Gallery in Manhattan (“a tour
de force” The New York Times (link?). Her crocheted installations have
also been presented at the 2004 Toronto Fringe Festival, life arts festival
in Philadelphia, and metropolitan pavilion (PROJECT, July 2004). She has a
new installation opening at the Transformer Gallery in Washington D.C. in
February. In 2004 Agata received the Ruth Mellon award for sculpture from
the National Art Club. She has taught costume design workshops for Materials
for the Arts (www.mfta.org), the source
of inspiration for many of Rachel and Agata’s collaborations.
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Darby
Shields
Originally from California, Darby Shields (hair design) has designed clothing
and hair in New York for the past three years. In addition to doing freelance
fashion work, she is a senior stylist at Lepine, NY on Madison Avenue.
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performers
Katie
Brack
Katie Brack has performed with numerous New York City dance companies including
Molissa Fenley, Pam Tanowitz Dance, Sally Schuiling Dance, and Anita Cheng
Dance Company. Ms. Brack is a member of Kimball Studio Performance Workshop,
an improv based theater company and Piper McKenzie Players, a dance theater
company based out of the Brick Theatre in Williamsburg. She received her BA
in dance from Butler University and trained professionally on scholarship
at the Merce Cunningham School.
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Karen
Garrett de Luna
Karen Garrett de Luna is
a graduate of the University of Washington, Seattle (Dance 1995, Mathematics
2000). In addition to being a modern dancer, she is also a belly dancer, photographer,
web designer and computer nerd. http://www.delunatic.net/
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Simon
Harding
Simon Harding is a member of SaBooge Theatre (www.sabooge.org),
an independent theatre company performing across the world. He has trained
at Swarthmore College, Ecole Jacques Lecoq, and Kiklos Scuola di Creazione
Teatrale. Simon has performed or designed for companies
including the International WOW Company, Slanski Teatr Tanca (Poland),
Mum Puppettheatre, and Bryn Mawr College. He was recently tapped for the Philadelphia
Weekly’s Best Lighting Design Critic's Pick (2004).
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Adrian
Jevicki
Adrian Jevicki is a graduate of Brown Universtity where he studied theater,
speech, dance, and business economics. He spent three years in Kyoto, Japan
with the Kyoryukan Theater Company. This is his first time working with racoco. .
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Kelly Kocinski
Kelly Kocinski likes to dance and subject herself to punishment, as proven
by her current status as a second year law student at Brooklyn Law. She is
also a certified Pilates instructor (contact her at kocinska@yahoo.com for
an appointment), so subjecting others to punishment is a hobby as well. She
is thrilled to continue the journey with Rachel (over 3 years now!) and to
work with this amazing bunch of people on this project. Love to all who help
me keep living la vida loca (you know who you are).
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Michelle
Vargo
Michelle Vargo is a graduate of the Juilliard School and is currently in her
eighth season of dancing with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. She has worked
with Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Gateway Playhouse as Victoria in Cats,
and DJ Salisbury’s original production of The Man Who Would Be King
during the New York Musical Theater Festival in September 2004, and is a member
of Company Rindfleisch. Michelle is also a talented singer-songwriter who
has played within many of the East Coast jamband/political folk music festivals.
Michelle is very pleased to be working with racoco productions on her first
full- length work.
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Chris
Woodrell
Chris Woodrell quit Little League and began dancing at age 11 in Southern
California and spent his childhood summers training with DanceAspen, San Francisco
and Boston Ballet schools. He then received a BA in Biochemistry from Swarthmore
College in 2001 before moving to New York. Past performances include innumerable
classical ballets, Laban reconstructions of Lester Horton and Dan Wagoner,
and festivals in Philadelphia and Bytom, Poland. He serves as assistant to
the choreographer for the Christopher Caines Dance Company and has been a
proud member of racoco productions since 2002.
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