Please note: All bios are written by members of the production team.
Annie Arthur
Assistant Lighting Designer; Stage Manager, Vidas Perfectas
Annie Arthur is happy to have the opportunity to be working on the Robert Ashley/Alex Waterman operas at the Whitney Biennial as David Moodey’s assistant and Stage Manager for Vidas Perfectas. This is her first time working on a piece by Robert Ashley and she is proud to be a part of this exciting work. Other theatrical work includes set and lighting design for professional and educational theater. She is also the founder of Annie’s Shakespeare Shakedown, an interactive and immersive theater company in the New York area.
Adam Bach
Sound Engineer, Vidas Perfectas and The Trial
Tatyana Tenenbaum’s Private Country at The Chocolate Factory (2013), Object Collection’s No Hotel at Incubator Arts Space (2013), Yoshiko Chuma’s Love Story: Palestine at La Mama (2012), and Universe’s Ameriville (2009-2011). From 2012-13 Adam was the Sound Supervisor for the ongoing immersive theater piece, Sleep No More by the British theatre company Punchdrunk. His original music compositions and sound installations have been performed and shown at the Marianne Boesky Gallery NYC, John Graham & Sons, at Pine Box, and at Vaudeville Park in Brooklyn. adambach.com
Sarah Crowner
Backdrops and Set Pieces, Vidas Perfectas
Sarah Crowner lives and works in New York City. Employing both original and appropriated compositions as patterns or templates, Crowner’s canvases and sculptures exist as hand-built objects that evoke the hard-edge paintings of the Modernist movement. These objects, constructed by sewing together painted panels of canvas, raw linen and monochromatic fabrics, introduce a human element to Modernist aesthetics which often championed the removal of the artist’s hand. Materiality, gestural brushstrokes and the irregularity of her sewn lines all act in sync to transform and challenge the legacy of hard-edged abstraction. Recently the artist has begun to engage the performative aspects of painting and sculpture, creating large scale painted backdrops, and curved platforms and stage sets for theater, for example in Vidas Perfectas, which also appeared (in part) at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2012, and will travel to El Paso and Marfa, TX in July 2014. Crowner received her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her MFA from Hunter College in 2002. Crowner has participated in major institutional exhibitions worldwide, including: 2010 Whitney Biennial; Painter, Painter, Walker Art Center; Abstract Generation: Now in Print, MoMA, New York; Splendor Tkaniny, Zacheta National Museum of Art, Warsaw; Excursus IV, ICA Philadelphia; and ExistenZ, Wiels, Brussels, all in 2013. Crowner has also recently shown at Nordenhake, Stockholm; Catherine Bastide, Brussels; and Helena Papadopoulos, Athens.
Sean Daly
Production Design, Vidas Perfectas and The Trial
Sean Daly lives in Los Angeles, California. His work as a production designer has appeared in film and television, as well as in printed formats for advertising. Daly explores the objective ability to create a psychology out of inanimate objects and spaces, and to wordlessly narrate a greater visual story. He has a keen awareness of the minutiae required to build controlled worlds filled with emotional information and visual history. He pays particular attention to character choices, and weighs the cumulative effects of their decisions while controlling the impact that they paint into an overall landscape. A broad knowledge of art history, and the constant study of high and low culture, inform the highly controlled material environments, and performative spaces that Daly constructs. As a set designer, Daly works on fashion advertising campaigns, and editorial stories with some of the industry’s leading photographers, for worldwide print and periodical publication. He has served as an artistic advisor to the leading role actors of critically acclaimed motion picture titles (The Soloist, Seven Psychopaths) and Academy Award Nominated (Sherlock Holmes). Daly received a BA in Comparative Literature from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1998. Daly was in residence at Watermill Center in 2013, with artist Laleh Khorramian. Daly also designed and executed immersive environments for Ballroom Marfa, The Kitchen, JC Penney, and Barclay’s Wealth
Peter Gordon
Music Producer, Vidas Perfectas
Peter Gordon studied composition with Robert Ashley at Mills College and was the music producer for the original Perfect Lives. A seminal figure in the downtown New York music community, Gordon is a composer, saxophonist and keyboard player whose work is noted for its original blend of lyricism, wit, and drama – often with a funky beat. Gordon is best known for his Love of Life Orchestra, which integrates experimentalism with pop grooves. He has composed music for theater and performance works, earning him OBIE and Bessie Awards and has an ongoing collaboration with video artist Kit Fitzgerald. Peter Gordon’s recordings have been released on the Lovely Music, Lust-Unlust, CBS Masterworks, Warner Brothers, Bridge Records, Newtone and DFA labels. Recent releases include the James Murphy/Pat Mahoney remix on Fabriclive 36; his opera with Lawrence Weiner, The Society Architect Ponders the Golden Gate Bridge, on the Crosstalk anthology (Bridge Records); the anthology Love of Life Orchestra (DFA Records); Gordon’s collaboration with Factory Floor, Beachcombing (Optimo Music); and he produced and arranged Tim Burgess’ new single Oh Men, to be released on Record Store Day. Gordon’s Symphony #5, recorded last year at Roulette in Brooklyn will be released by Foom Music (UK) in May.
Victoria Keddie
Live Video Composition, Vidas Perfectas and The Trial
Victoria Keddie is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She works in varying media involving audio / visual signal generation, magnetic field recording, and broadcast. Keddie has programmed events internationally, with a focus on experimental sound, live cinema, and transmission-based arts. As an archivist, she focuses on preserving analog experimental sound and radio collections. She is the co-director of E.S.P. TV, a nomadic organization that programs analog-based live broadcast events and exhibitions, as well as a series on MNN cable access. She is the founder of Optics O:O, an archival film program that investigates hybrid filmmaking techniques with early video and software systems. She is a founding member of the film-based collective, Optipus. She holds a BFA from University of the Arts with a Senior Mobility Fellowship at California College of Arts, and an MA in Museum Studies from NYU, with a concentration on Ephemeral Media collections. She has exhibited and performed at such venues as New Museum, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Museum of Arts and Design, The Kitchen, Canada Gallery (New York City), Museum of the Moving Image (Queens), Microscope Gallery, Spectacle, Silent Barn (Brooklyn), Liminal Space (Oakland), Pallas Projects (Dublin), and General Public, (Berlin).
Scott Kiernan
Live Video Composition, Vidas Perfectas and The Trial
Scott Kiernan is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in New York City. He was a founder and director of Louis V E.S.P., a not-for-profit gallery and performance space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2010-2012) and co-founder/director of E.S.P. TV, a nomadic curatorial platform for performance/video which takes the form of a live television show. He has exhibited work internationally in venues such as New Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, Storefront for Art and Architecture, NurtureArt, PS122, Mixed Greens (NYC), Southern Exposure and Baer Ridgway Projects (San Francisco) Centro Internazionale Per L’Arte Contemporanea (Rome), KT&G Sangsangmadang (Seoul) and the Third Guangzhou Triennial (China), amongst others. Kiernan received his MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2007.
ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann
Associate Producer
Thomas O. Kriegsmann is a producer, manager and curator who founded ArKtype in 2006 toward the long-term development, production and touring of new internationally based performance work on various scales. ArKtype’s work has been seen worldwide, including projects with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Yael Farber, Peter Brook, Jay Scheib, Julie Taymor, Yaron Lifschitz, Dmitry Krymov, and Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin. Recent premieres include Big Dance Theater / Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Man In A Case and the off-Broadway run of Nalaga’at Deaf-Blind Theater’s Not By Bread Alone. Additional projects include Theatre for a New Audience & Julie Taymor; Rude Mechs (Austin); Big Dance Theater; Baryshnikov Productions; Lisa Peterson & Denis O’Hare / Homer’s Coat; Soho Rep.; Aurélia Thiérrée & Victoria Thiérrée-Chaplin (France); Andrew Ondrejcak / Shara Worden; En Garde Productions / Basetrack; Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis (Seattle/New Haven); Young Vic / Kafka’s Monkey (London); CHRISTEENE / Paul Soileau (Austin); Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen; Circa (Brisbane); Compagnia T.P.O. (Italy); Erth (Sydney); Sam Green / Yo La Tengo & yMusic; Arcane Collective (Dublin); Joshua Light Show; and World/Inferno Friendship Society. Upcoming premieres include Sam Green’s The Great Heart of Humanity with yMusic, and Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen’s How to Be A Rock Critic.
Philip Makanna
Photographs, Crash
Philip Makanna is a painter / sculptor / photographer, originally from New York, who received his B.A. from Brown University and M.A. from the University of California, Berkley. He has lived in San Francisco since the 1960s. Since 1977, Makanna has had twelve one-man exhibitions of his photography. Examples can be found in the Sam Wagstaff Collection at the Getty Museum and in the Permanent Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Art. Makanna’s work in photography was represented by the Witkin Gallery in New York and by the Hansen Fuller Goldeen Gallery in San Francisco. Makanna’s photographs were exhibited in a one-man show organized by the United States Information Agency that toured worldwide to 20 countries. Makanna has exhibited widely as a painter and as a sculptor. His sculpture was shown in the Whitney Annual exhibition in 1966. His work in painting and sculpture was represented by The Dilexi Gallery in San Francisco. He has made five major films and received major film awards. He was the founder and director of the Fine Arts Video Center at CCA. His video work was has been sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and exhibited at the Whitney Museum. Robert Ashley provided music for Makanna’s films, Battery Davis and Shoot The Whale and Makanna collaborated with Ashley on the 14-hour video opera/documentary, Music with Roots in the Aether (artistic direction and video camera). Five books of Makanna’s aviation photography have been published. Since 1980 his photographs of lovingly restored and maintained WWI and WWII aircraft (in flight) have been featured annually in the calendars, Ghosts, A Time Remembered and Ghosts of The Great War.
David Moodey
Lighting Designer
David Moodey has been collaborating with Robert Ashley for 15 years, most recently designing lights for That Morning Thing at The Kitchen in NYC. Other highlights include designing sets and lights for Dust, Celestial Excursions and Concrete, presented in repertory at La MaMa, NYC and numerous European tours. David is also the principle lighting designer for Molissa Fenley, choreographer. For over 25 years he has designed and toured with Molissa worldwide, winning a Bessie award for Lighting Design for her State of Darkness. Other recent works include La Boheme, The Gift of the Magi and Phillip Glass’s Days and Nights Festival at Hidden Valley Music Institute, Carmel, CA, The Nutcracker for the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NYC, Pericles, directed by David Schwitzer at NYU, and Authors Direct Authors at La MaMa, with authors and directors Marco Calvani and Neil LaBute. Other collaborations include David Neumann’s Advanced Beginner Group, Big Dance Theater, and choreographer Helen Heinemen. David also spent 29 years at the Metropolitan Opera House, designing and engineering mechanical and moving effects. He received his MFA at NYU for theater design (sets and lights). He is also a member of both the United Scenic Artist Union, #829 and the NY Stagehands Union, Local One.
Tom Hamilton
Music Director and Sound Engineer, Crash
Tom Hamilton maintains overlapping careers in both audio production and music composition. Since 1990, Hamilton has been a member of composer Robert Ashley’s touring opera ensemble, performing sound processing and mixing in both recordings and concerts. His audio production can be found in over 60 CD releases of new and experimental music, including recordings by Muhal Richard Abrams, David Behrman, Thomas Buckner, Bernard Hoffer, George Lewis, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Lucier, Roscoe Mitchell, Phill Niblock, and “Blue” Gene Tyranny. Hamilton has composed and performed electronic music for over 40 years, and his work with electronic music originated in the late-60s era of analog synthesis. Hamilton is a Fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and participated in a residency at their center in Umbria in 2005. His performing and recording colleagues include Peter Zummo, Bruce Gremo, Bruce Eisenbeil, Rich O’Donnell, Jonathan Haas, Jacqueline Martelle, Thomas Buckner, Al Margolis and id m theft able. He has been a collaborator with visual artists, including filmmaker Fred Worden, video artists Van McElwee and Morey Gers, and the late photographer Ernst Haas. Hamilton has released 15 CDs of his music; his CD London Fix received an award in the Prix Ars Electronica, and a 2-CD set of his electronic music of the 1970s was named one of The Wire’s Top 50 Reissues of 2010. Hamilton was the co-director of the 2004 Sounds Like Now festival, and he co-produced the Cooler in the Shade/Warmer by the Stove new music series for 14 years.
Alexandra Rosenberg
Producer
Alexandra Rosenberg is an independent producer and artist manager, supporting multidisciplinary performance projects. She currently works with Annie Dorsen, Faye Driscoll, Arturo Vidich, Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble, and Alex Waterman. Previously, she was the Associate Producer at ArKtype with Thomas O. Kriegsmann, and has also worked with Beth Morrison Projects, Ping Chong & Co., New York City Arts Coalition, and proudly started her career at The Chocolate Factory. Recent and upcoming premieres include Robert Ashley and Alex Waterman at the 2014 Whitney Biennial, Faye Driscoll’s Thank You For Coming: Attendance at Danspace Project, Annie Dorsen’s Yesterday/Tomorrow, a site-specific production of Vidas Perfectas with Ballroom Marfa, and producing the inaugural Taste of Bushwick to benefit The Bushwick Starr. Born and raised in Queens, she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, and is a graduate of Bennington College.