artistic director
collaborators
Stephanie Beck
Stephanie creates cut paper drawings and constructions inspired by patterns of settlement and architectural structures Stephanie has an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a BA from the University of Virginia. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Paris, Philadelphia, and Istanbul. Stephanie has participated in artist residencies in New York, NY, Fort Collins, CO, and Istanbul, Turkey. She was a recent recipient of an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant.
www.stephaniebeck.org/
Chris Becker
Composer Chris Becker creates chamber, electronic, and improvised music for dance, film, and mixed media installations, and has received grants from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center (now New Music USA). His music for dance includes the score for choreographer Rachel Cohen's evening-length work, If The Shoe Fits, named one of the best dance performances of 2005 by The New York Times dance critic John Rockwell. Becker's collaboration with painter and video artist Lillian Warren and dancer Annie Arnoult Who You Once Were performed to sold-out audiences in August 2019 at Aurora Picture Show, Houston, TX. Becker has also composed music for choreographers Sasha Soreff (The Other Shoe, Ailey Citigroup Theater, 2009), Adrian Jevicki (La Spectra, The Tank, 2009), Rebecca French (The Rite of Summer, Cullen Theater, Wortham Center, 2015), and Blakeley White-McGuire, former Principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company (Devotion, Bell Works, 2021). In 2022, Axelrod Contemporary Ballet Theater commissioned Becker to compose music for The Lost Princess of Oz, a ballet based on the stories of L. Frank Baum, which ran for eight performances at The Pollak Theater at Monmouth University. Axelrod received support for the commission from New Music USA's New Music Organizational Fund.
Becker has scored several award-winning films for artist Jil Guyon, including Widow's End, which screened at the 2022 Dance On Camera Festival at Lincoln Center. His composition for unaccompanied cello, A Gift From The Bower, premiered April 23, 2023, as part of an outdoor group exhibition conceived by renowned sculptor artists James Surls and Charmaine Locke.
Becker writes about visual art, music, dance, and theater for several print and online publications and is the author of Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz, a collection of in-depth conversations with 37 female jazz musicians.
https://beckeresque.bandcamp.com/music
Heather Cornell
Heather Cornell creates visual music ensembles where she functions as the percussionist. As artistic director for Manhattan Tap, one of the busiest music/dance companies in the world in the 80's and 90's, she is known as a mover and shaker of the tap dance renaissance. She has toured worldwide with her shows "Finding Synesthesia", "CanTap" and "Conversations" and as a soloist. She was recently commissioned to create an evening for the Distinguished Artist Series at Bergen Community College. She is co-director of "Walk to the Beat" and co-founder of Making Music Dance, a tap, flamenco and world music ensemble, releasing their first CD this spring.
A pioneer of concert tap and of working with world music, Heather trained directly with the first generation tap masters, and has taught and inspired three generations of tap dancers, musicians and actors internationally. Called "the Oscar Peterson of hoofing" (Globe and Maill), she was the sole tap dancer mentored by the infamous bassist, Ray Brown. TapMotif in Lefkada, Greece was her laboratory for 8 seasons, where she trained free-thinking "bilingual" artists in music and dance. This year she celebrates the 25th Anniversary of her NYC Rhythm Tap Intensive with live music.
Her TV, radio and film credits include: "Thinking on Their Feet, Women of the Tap Renaissance" (Jenai Cutcher), "Gotta Move, Women in Tap" (Lynn Daly), ""KQED special with Honi Coles and the Jazz Tap Ensemble; "Gregory Hines' Tap Dance in America" for PBS; featured MT special on "Sounds Impressive"; and, WYNC's live radio show, "Around New York" for 5 years. She choreographed "The Play What I Wrote" for Broadway and "Three Penny Opera" for Atalaya in Sevilla, Spain. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her excellence in tap dance and in leading the international tap community.
Taps and Traps: Heather Cornell and Jesse Stewart • Handpan Sand Dance from Hazi on Vimeo.
www.manhattantap.org/story
Olek
OLEK's art pushes the boundaries of fashion, art, crafts, and public art, fluidly combining the sculptural and the fanciful with the old-fashioned technique of crocheting. An active supporter of women's rights, sexual equality, and freedom of expression, OLEK has traveled the globe for their community-based projects; Love Across the USA is a series of public murals depicting inspiring women from history. OLEK's sculptures and performances have been exhibited worldwide, including Art Basel and Wynwood Walls in Miami, the Brooklyn Museum in NY, and The Smithsonian in Washington DC. Their work is in the permanent collections at URBAN NATION Museum for Contemporary Urban Art in Berlin, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Avesta Art Museum in Avesta, Sweden, and the New York Historical Society, and several private collections, including those of Antonio Banderas and Mike D from the Beastie Boys. OLEK's work has been covered in numerous publications, including the Smithsonian Magazine, Creators (VICE), the Huffington Post, The New Yorker, and New York Magazine. OLEK has been named one of the top artist Instagram accounts to follow by Christie's and Art Net, and Artsy name them as an artist giving knitting a place in art history. OLEK currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
www.loveacrosstheusa.com/meet-the-team/
Justin Perkins
Justin Perkins is a puppet artist and performer. He has appeared in works by Ping Chong+Company (Alaxsxa|Alaska, LaMama, US tour), Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (And Here We Are, National Sawdust), Tom Lee (Shank's Mare, LaMama, US tour), Lake Simons, Patti Bradshaw, Puppet Cinema, Unitards, imnotlost and more. He works frequently as a puppet designer and maker for Basil Twist (Nutcracker, Joffrey Ballet; Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, B'way; Symphonie Fantastique, HERE). Justin's forthcoming work Unicorn Afterlife is the recipient of a Workshop Grant from the Jim Henson Foundation and residencies at the Jim Henson Legacy Carriage House and West Park Presbyterian Church. Justin is one third of the curatorial team at Object Movement Festival, a year-long development residency program for puppet artists with new works in development. Justin studied theater at Vassar and Sarah Lawrence Colleges, and is a teacher of puppetry, theater and filmmaking in schools and community centers around New York. He is also the Program Director at New Country Day Camp in Staten Island.
www.justinaperkins.com
Lynn Wright
Lynn Wright is composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Brooklyn. His music incorporates free improvisation, musique concrète, lyrical songwriting, and jazz-infused scores. His work for film and television has appeared on the BBC, PBS, Netlfix, and ABC, and at Sundance, Cannes, The Venice Film Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and the Berlin Film Festival. He has performed or collaborated with Algis Kizys, Victoria Miguel, Christiane Hommelsheim, Andrea Belfi, Chris Becker, Helga Davis, Lewis Barnes, Norman Westberg, Laura Ortman, Raphaele Shirley, and Alexander Hacke, among others. His most recent work is This Is Where, an improvised dark-ambient collaboration with Norman Westberg and Algis Kizys
https://soundcloud.com/andthewiremen
performers
Toby Billowitz
Toby Billowitz has danced with many choreographers and companies, including Jordan Fuchs, Artichoke Dance, Freefall, Jill Sigman/thinkdance, and Ben Munisteri. He has puppeteered at drag shows, NYC Halloween parades, at BAM and around the country with Phantom Limb, and on Broadway in War Horse. In addition to dance, he has taught gymnastics and trampoline to children and adults, social dance to teens, movement to senior citizens, and puppetry to children in the Dominican Republic in an area so rural they were neither familiar with the word for puppet nor the concept. He has enjoyed involvement in several Racoco projects since 2015.
Nikki D'Agostino
Nikki D'Agostino An award-winning "wildly creative" composer, musician, conductor, educator, and multi-disciplinary artist, Nikki D'Agostino has both performed and had her works performed nationally and internationally. She received her B.A. from The University of North Texas in 2004 after studying with Joseph Klein, Phil Winsor, and Joseph "Butch" Rovan, before pursuing her M.M. in Music Composition (2008) at CUNY Brooklyn College to study with Amnon Wolman and George Brunner.
As an educator, Ms. D'Agostino has given lectures on topics ranging from musicology to performance practice as well as holding a position as an Adjunct Professor at CUNY New York City College of Technology in the Emerging Media program. Compositionally, Nikki is currently focused on publishing a book of scores and recording an album of works using a notation system she developed to allow both performer and composer/conductor creative control. As a "beautifully brash" saxophonist, synthesizer enthusiast, and sound artist, Nikki performs actively in the NYC music scene in several groups ranging in style from indie pop to harsh noise.
Eric Eble
Eric Eble is a longstanding, NYC-based electric and upright bass player. For the last two decades he has been a main contributor and band-member with the likes of the Reid Paley Trio, Reid Paley/Black Francis, Cordero, and The Heroine Sheiks, with all of whom he has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. Currently he plays bass with And The Wiremen.
Remi Harris
Remi Harris is a Brooklyn based performer, curator, producer, and choreographer whose work explores the intersectionality between dance, new media, and female representation. In addition to performing with Racoco, she works on her own creative projects under her choreographic venture dancesbyremi. Her stage work has been presented at Abrons Art Center, Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Danspace Project, Teatro La Tea, Triskelion Arts, The Actors Fund Theater, The Brick Theater, and several site-specific areas in NYC. She was previously the Education Coordinator for Ballet Hispanico and the Co-Director of Brooklyn Studios for Dance and advocates for dance as a member of several dance collectives including the Artists of Color Council. Her first short dance film "to be:free" has been featured in several film festivals including the 2018 Cucalorus Film Festival.
https://www.remitharris.com
Eric Hoegemeyer
Eric Hoegemeyer is a composer and producer originally from Detroit, now residing between New York City and Bogotá. He has released music under the names Deep See Sound System, Giant Brain, and Tree Laboratory. He has collaborated with Patti Smith, Tom Verlaine, Kevin Saunderson, Hundred Waters, H09909, and Dennis Coffey. In 2013 he scored 14 short films for filmmaker Steven Sebring's "Revolution" installation at the 69th Division Armory. In 2014 he directed and scored a short film collaboration with Patti Smith entitled "The Good Gray Poet" on installation with MOMA PS-1. His 2016 album "Secret Agent Volume 1" was released on cassette by Brooklyn-based label Personal Affair. In 2017 he remixed Sun Ra's Heliocentric Worlds as a part of a compilation also released on Personal Affair. His forthcoming album "Somnambulist Soundtracks" will be released in May of 2019. He has performed original compositions at Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubin Museum of Art, MOMA PS-1 Rockaway and The Detroit Science Center.
Masumi Kishimoto
Masumi Kishimoto is a native of Tokyo, Japan, who studied dance in Japan and the U.S. She also studied Physical Comedy under the direction of Gregg Goldston and Ms. Kishimoto was featured member of Goldston Mime Company. She has choreographed pieces that combine Mime / Physical Comedy and Dance for performances at the Puffin Room, Movement Research at Judson Church, Studio b.p.m., Theater for the New City, The Ailey Studio Theater and La MaMa. As a dancer, she worked with various choreographers such as Yana Schnitzler, Daria Fain, Ayako Kurakake, Asami Morita in NY, Pennsylvania, Germany and Japan. She has been a member of Racoco Productions since 2010. Ms. Kishimoto is a nationally certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, AmSAT, ACAT. She has been teaching at Orthopedic Movement Physical Therapy for people who want to know how you move such as dancers, singers, actors.
http://masumikishimoto.com/home
Meghan Schardt
Meghan Schardt is a graduate of New World School of The Arts. Her credits include work with Miami Repertoire Ballet Company, Memento, Octavia Cup, Hawaii Ballet Theatre, Bryon Carr Dance, Jenn Sims (Biennale Venice, Art Basel film project), Becky Radway Dance Production, Nancy Whyte and Yuka Kawazus's Danse En L'Air. Special thanks to my mentor Sara Neece.
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