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::PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE::

Pick 7 2006/2007 #6 - LAST OF THE SEASON
TUESDAY, APRIL 17th
Doors open at 6:30
Daniel Arcé meets John A Wilson 7:00
$7.00 at the door

Daniel Arcé has a BFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and a Diploma in Software Development. He runs the Cultural Studies New Media Lab at York University. His video works have been shown at the /Images Festival/ in Toronto and /Video Archeology/ in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has presented at the /Impakt Festival/ in Utrecht, the /Next Five Minutes/ in Amsterdam, and at the /Looking Glass Gallery/ in Brussels. He has done live VJ sets with Montreal filmmaker Ian Cameron for DJ Swamp and Afrika Bambaataa.
His work is included in /Making Art with Databases/ published by V2 press in Rotterdam, and /Connected!/LiveArt published by the Waag Society of Old and New Media, Amsterdam.
He has done Live Stage Video for Ame Henderson's choreographies performed in The Netherlands, Croatia, Montreal and Toronto.

John A Wilson is a music composer, producer, sound/multimedia installation artist and designer originally from Fresno, California.

In 1991, Wilson began his professional career signed to Rick Rubin’s label, American Records. Wilson later became a member of the pioneering electronic band, Meat Beat Manifesto making his own modular synthesizer from old guitar pedals and building his own guitars and instruments.  During his time with MBM, the band held three world tours, produced two albums, and won a best electronic music award in 1998.

After leaving Meat Beat Manifesto in 1998, Wilson teamed up with fellow producer Chris Millar and  legendary  blues artist Harmonica Slim, to create the seminole nu-blues work, Pig in a Can. Combining social commentary, sound collages, personal narrative, lo-fidelity and experimental forms, Pig in a Can defined a new landscape and approach for the blues.

Wilson studied with electronic guru Morton Subotnick and psycho-acoustic digital synthesis pioneer Jim Tenny, while obtaining his graduate degree in composition at the California Institute of the Arts. During this time, he started the company, DJN music, with fellow student, composer, and longtime friend Dan Nielsen. The company has since composed and produced music for theatrical trailers including Lord of the Rings, Chicago, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Gosford Park to name a few. 

Since 2003, Wilson has been exhibiting multimedia installations, most notably, A Fly in a Carton of Buttermilk, at OSU, Oregon. He is currently working on a large-scale installation for the Parisian Laundry Gallery in Montreal, Qc to be exhibited May, 2008.

John continues to add his unique sounds, and style of composition in film, television, popular and experimental music recordings, and audio object-sound installations. He currently lives in the Montreal, QC.

Past Pick 7 Artists:
John Oswald
A recent Governor General Award Media Arts Laureate, Ars Electronica Digital Musics and Untitled Arts Award winner, as well as the fourth inductee into the CBC Alternative Walk of Fame, John Oswald has also been nominated to third place in a list of the most internationally influential Canadian musicians, tied with Celine Dion.
He has just completed working with the Continuum contemporary music ensemble, the NOW jazz orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Orchestra, who performed a retrospective of his concert works. He is currently preparing visual and sound installations for 2007, including a permanent aural environment for the new Royal Ontario Museum Crystal, and a video for Canada's largest LCD screen, in the Yonge Dundas Square Toronto.
Oswald has also maintained an improvisatory focus for over a quarter century, both as a saxophonist and a contact dancer. He has performed on four continents and can be heard on dozens of recordings, notably as a featured guest soloist with the third stream big band Hemispheres (Artifact1994); on a 3-Cd document of a concert in the year 2000 with pianists Marilyn Crispell, Paul Plimley, and Cecil Taylor, (Victo, 2001); and his solo recording Alto Sax (mLab 1980). His latest recordings are a double CD with the Michael Snow-founded trio CCMC (Art Metropole) and a trio entitled Dearness, with guitarist Fred Frith and cellist Anne Bourne (the latter from his all acoustic ensemble Double Wind Cello Trios (1990-2000)), on Spool. Of his sax playing the Globe and Mail's Mark Miller has written "Oswald is red hot!".
He founded the Toronto Contact Improvisation Jamboree (also known as Art Wrestling) in 1978, which, having occurred every Sunday since then, is now the longest continuously-running jam of its type in the world. In that same year he toured extensively with contact superstar Andrew Harwood as a duo of dance and sax. He has appeared very occasionally as a contact performer, but prefers the 'everyone participates' aspect of the jam-form.

Holly Small
Canadian dance artist Holly Small has been choreographing, performing, teaching and writing about dance for 25 years. Her work, described as "a flawless integration of music and dance" (Globe & Mail, Toronto) has been featured in dance, music and theatre festivals throughout Canada, in the US, Europe and Asia. An artist long devoted to interdisciplinary research, Small's recent works include, In the Letters of My Name, a collaboration with Azerbaijani dancer/singer Sashar Zarif (which received the 2006 Paula Citron Award at the Toronto International Dance Festival) and Night Vision: Nyx, an exploration of dance, music and inter-active video. Currently Small is at work on a new project with long-time collaborator John Oswald and Quebec artist and technological wizard Emile Morin. This project, featuring some of the most extraordinary dancers in the country along with an intriguing, eccentric ensemble of brass players, will merge live dance and music with morphing video portraits.
Small has a large appetite for working with dance artists on issues of creative process and is much in demand as a dramaturg and choreographic faciltator in the Toronto dance community. As a performer Small has been described as "poetic and witty.... with a refreshingly feminine humour and an eagle eye for detail" (Eye Magazine). One critic simply wrote, "She doesn't have a stupid bone in her body." (Toronto Star) Recently she returned to the stage in two new projects for choreographers Susan Lee and Sashar Zarif. She is a Full Professor at York University, where for 18 years she has been working in the areas of contemporary dance technique, choreography, inter-disciplinary composition, inter-active technology, music for dancers, creativity studies as well as supervising graduate thesis research. Small is the subject of a mini-documentary commissioned by the York Institute for Health Research. This brief film, centred on Night Vision: Nyx, provided her with a welcome opportunity to share with a wider public her ideas about dance as a healing art and a profoundly necessary part of our culture and our community.

Eve Egoyan
"Eve Egoyan's pianism has strengths in abundance… she illuminates the music she plays; an alchemy, authenticity and fearlessness'" - International Piano Magazine
Eve Egoyan is a concert pianist specializing in the performance of new works. She has appeared as a solo recitalist in Canada, England, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.S.
She has released six discs, five of works by living composers and one disc of works by Erik Satie. "Asking" by Maria de Alvear will released internationally on the New York-based record label Mode Records this fall. Eve will record her seventh disc, "Simple lines of Enquiry" by Ann Southam, this winter.
Performance highlights in 2007 include the world premiere of "Clear Energy" for piano and orchestra by Maria de Alvear, travelling to Lisbon to perform in DIAS DA MÚSICA and performing Alvin Curran's six-hour long "Inner Cities" in New York and across Canada.
Eve enjoys improvising and hopes to find more time for her creative work.
Honours include numerous commissions and awards from the Canada Council, Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils, FACTOR, a University of Victoria Distinguished Alumna Award, a K.M. Hunter Award, and a Chalmers Award.

David Rokeby
Born in Tillsonburg, Ontario in 1960, David Rokeby has been creating interactive sound and video installations with computers since 1982. His early work Very Nervous System (1982-1991) is acknowledged as a pioneering work of interactive art, translating physical gestures into real-time interactive sound environments. Very Nervous System was presented at the Venice Biennale in 1986, and was awarded the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts in 1988 and Austria's Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Interactive Art in 1991.
Several of his works have addressed issues of digital surveillance. Watched and Measured (2000) was awarded the first BAFTA award for interactive art from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2000. Other works engage in a critical examination of the differences between human and artificial intelligence. The Giver of Names (1991-) and n-cha(n)t (2001) are artificial subjective entities, provoked by objects or spoken words in their immediate environment to formulate sentences and speak them aloud.
David Rokeby's installations have been exhibited extensively in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He has been an invited speaker at events around the world, and has published two papers that are required reading in the new media arts faculties of many universities. In 2002, Rokeby was awarded a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, Canada's highest honour in visual art, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Interactive Art (for n-cha(n)t) and represented Canada at the Venice Biennale of Architecture with Seen (2002). In 2004 here presented Canada at the Sao Paulo Bienal in Brazil. He is currently working on major art commissions for Hamilton International Airport (September 2006), the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto (Oct 2006), the Daniel Langlois Foundation in Montreal (August 2007)
David Rokeby is represented by Pari Nadimi Gallery.

Erika Hennebury is Associate Producer for Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, Rhubarb Festival Co-Director and Artistic Coordinator for Audience Relocation 2007. A graduate of Dalhousie University’s Theatre Department and a former member of the Irondale Emsemble Project (Halifax) Erika has studied ensemble creation, improvisation, dance, dramaturgy, directing, voice, physical theatre, clown and corporeal mime at L’Ecole Omnibus in Montreal in 1996-97 and was Co-Artistic Director of Les Vaches from 1994 - 2004. Along with acting, creating original new work, directing and artistic programming Erika has worked as a freelance publicist for Obsidian, b current, SummerWorks, Independent Aunties, The Scandelles and many more indie companies over the past 10 years in Toronto. Directing credits include: Straight, Until, by Lee Ann Poole (Paprika ’05), The Dead Sea, by David Tomlinson and Sonja Mills (Buddies’ Rhubarb ’05), Infoline, Bonjour…, by Julian Doucet (Rhubarb ’03). Recent performance credits include: Flag and Pile and other Tales, by Sonja Mills (SummerWorks ‘05), Hospital Green, by Hope Thompson (Rhubarb 05), The Danish Play, by Sonja Mills (Nightwood, Toronto/NAC, Ottawa/Magnetic North, Edmonton/Aveny-T, Copenhagen), The Happy Woman, by Rose Cullis (SummerWorks ’04), The Twins, a store-front performance installation, (Queen West Art Crawl ’04), The Secret Life of Haddon MacKenzie, by Sky Gilbert (Cabaret Company), Green and Radio Play (Retro Rhubarb! ‘04), Mouse by Sonja Mills (Buddies’ Hysteria Festival ‘03), STEM (BIBT ’03 – Les Vaches/House of Slacks), Flag and Pile, by Sonja Mills (Rhubarb! ‘03/BIBT), Bébé (Theatre Asylum/Groundswell – Nightwood/Rhubarb! ’03 - BIBT), A Sun Without Heat (Canadia dell'Arte Theatre), Inertia: phases 1 & 2 (Oopmh ’00 & ‘02), The Duchess of Malfi (Ghost House co-op ‘99), Jekyll, ‘the ecstatics’ and Better Safe Than Sorry (Les Vaches), Buying The Pharm (Squadrun Theatre) and Extract (Milkman Theatre Group). Erika was co-recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award for 2000 and received a Theatre Ontario Professional Development Training Programme Grant in 2001.

Laura Nanni is a Toronto based interdisciplinary artist, curator and stage manager. Since graduating from the theatre and visual studies programs at the University of Toronto in 2003, she has presented performances at 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art (Toronto), Galapagos Art Space (New York); and participated in group shows and screenings at Fifth Parallel Gallery (Regina); The Drake, Junction Arts Festival, Koffler Gallery, One Minute Video and Film Festival, (Toronto); and Mobilivre (Montreal). Laura has held a variety of artistic and production roles with independent and professional theatre companies including Absit Omen, Bluemouth Inc., The Canadian Opera Company, One Man Tag, Public Recordings, Soulpepper, Small Wooden Shoe, The Stratford Festival, Tarragon Theatre, and Theatre Columbus. This past year Laura co-edited an issue of the Canadian Theatre Review focusing on site-specific performance with Andrew Houston, collaborated on a performance/ installation work with UK-based artist Sorrel Muggridge for the Bonington Gallery in Nottingham UK, exhibited the third installment of her Automatic Tourist series at the Lab Cab Festival and created an interactive performance tour for Nuit Blanche, an all-night art event presented by the City of Toronto. Upcoming projects include an artistic collaboration with Adam Paolozza and Marc Tellez for Buddies in Bad Times 'Turn Left Here' Series and stage managing Bluemouth Inc's latest creation this spring.

Keith Hennessy is an Ontario-born performer and director living in San Francisco. He directs CIRCO ZERO, a group of circus and music artists. Hennessy’s recent choreography includes SDF USA, made with Jules Beckman and based on a text by Robert Olen Butler; Mercy, and Chosen. Keith’s solo work has been produced throughout the U.S., in Canada, Israel, New Zealand, France and Australia. Hennessy was recently awarded the Alpert/McDowell Fellowship in Dance 2005. Keith has won awards and commissions for his work including several Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, two San Francisco Weekly Black Box Awards, a Bay Area Critics Circle Award, and commissions from Les Subsistances (Lyon), Les Laboratoires (Aubervilliers) and La Villette (Paris), Southern Arts Federation, Kentucky Arts Council, and the Redwood Theater Center. From 1998-2002 he performed with CAHIN-CAHA, a circus based in France. Keith was a member of the extreme performance collective CORE and a founding member of CONTRABAND, an internationally acclaimed performance company directed by Sara Shelton Mann. From 1991-2003 Keith co-directed 848 Community Space, a thriving urban performance gallery. He has been on faculty at JFK University, University of San Francisco, Goddard College, and the New College of California.

In the past 25 years of her professional career, Ellen Ray Snow has had access to all areas of the business including teaching theatre and voice (The Best Program, Canadian Stage, Voiceworx, St. Andrew's College and the Workman Theatre Projects) and directing (she had been nominated for the 2003 Pauline McGibbon Award and won the Ken McDougal Award for Direction), producing and co-artistic direction of her new theatre company DDT Inc (which just produced the critically acclaimed By The Bog Of Cats and Helen). As an actor she has performed in over 170 productions across Canada, the US and Europe with many award nominations along the way; most recently the Jesse Richardson nomination for Best Actress playing Ayn Rand in The Emotionalists and a Gemini nomination for Best Actress in Bravo's One Last Look in the Mirror.

Aimée Dawn Robinson is a dance artist, writer, producer and visual artist living in Toronto. A dedicated improviser, Aimée has collaborated with musicians Martin Arnold, Jennifer Castle, Eric Chenaux, Ryan Driver, Alex Lukashevsky, Kurt Newman and Doug Tielli in venues such as Rat-Drifting, Ulterior, Window, Images Festival, fFIDA, Older and Reckless, Wavelength and Up Darling. She records and performs with THE trio The Thorpe (with Colin Clark and Josh Thorpe) and has composed dance scores for artists Tamara Cosby, Seika Boye and herself. Aimée has had the pleasure of working with dance artists Motaz Kabbani, Barb Lindenberg, Viv Moore and Terrill Maguire, though she most often performs solo as mother drift.  Aimée is the Co-founder and Co-Artistic Director (with Barbara Lindenberg) of Up Darling.

Eric Chenaux experiments with song forms as a guitar player, composer and singer. He performs with The Reveries, The Guayaveras and The Draperies.  As a composer Eric has had pieces performed by The Arraymusic Ensemble and Neither/Nor. He is also co-founder of Toronto based recording label, Rat-drifting. Eric’s new album Dull Lights will be released this September on Constellation Records.

Eric Craven was born on Canada's west coast and is a Montreal-based sound designer and percussionist. He has produced work for many choreographers including Julie Lebel, Catherine Lipscombe and Claudia Fancello. As a performer, Eric works in a variety of live contexts. Most notably, he is the percussionist of the experimental viola / drum duo Hangedup with whom he has produced three studio albums for the Montreal label Constellation Records and tours extensively across Canada and internationally. He has been a member of Shortwave, Sackville and Blackout, and has thrown down his unparalleled rhythm thing, on record and in concert, with Mitchell Akiyama, Polmo Polpo, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, Silver Mt. Zion and Hrsta, among many others. Eric is interested in pushing ordinary objects to say something musical. His sound designs feature forgotten and broken household and industrial items as well as a wide assortment of homemade instruments. Eric has a Masters of Library Information Sciences.

Polmo Polpo is the main project of Toronto-based musician Sandro Perri, who combines long-burn drones, submerged rhythms and various instrumental sources (slide guitar, strings, accordion) to make shimmering soundscapes embedded with gorgeous melodic hooks. Between 1999 and 2002, Sandro released a series of 12"s (by Cog, Dot Wiggin, and Polmo Polpo) on his own Audi Sensa label. These early Polmo Polpo tracks were compiled and re-issued on CD in 2002 by Alien8 Recordings, after which Perri began work on a proper full-length, issued by Constellation in 2003. Polmo Polpo has toured extensively in Canada, was part of the Constellation European Roadshow in 2004, was invited to Winnipeg's Send + Receive festival that same year, and played Montrealís MUTEK electronic music festival in 2005. Sandro runs The Honey Pot studio out of his Toronto home, is half of Glissandro 70, records under the moniker Continuous Dick, and plays with The Great Lake Swimmers and various projects affiliated with the Rat Drifting label in Toronto. He has recently been moving towards vocal-driven songwriting, which he performs under his own name.

We gratefully acknowledge the Ontario Arts Council for their support of the 06/07 season on Pick 7