Takuya Nakamura with Rebekah Heller, Laura Ortman, Marton “Juice” Gabor, & azumi O E
"Cosmic Rhythm"
8pm doors • 9pm show
About
Haunting synths, dazzling visual projections, and more combine to make Cosmic Rhythm, a unique immersive performance that spotlights moments of shared consciousness. Grounded in Japanese culture and noise music, this show features live dance from international Butoh star azumi O E, groundbreaking visuals from hip stage designer Marton “Juice” Gabor, virtuosic bassoon work from International Contemporary Ensemble Co-Artistic Director Rebekah Heller, Apache violin work from the award-winning Laura Ortman, and otherworldly harmonies from composer Takuya Nakamura. Presented by Sienna Berritto, Cosmic Rhythm questions our everyday reality and holds audiences spellbound in a moment of spontaneous creation.
Tickets
The Artists
azumi O E was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. She is a former principal dancer of New York–based Butoh company Vangeline Theatre, where she performed for over eight years. She was an assistant choreographer/main dancer for Butoh Master Katsura Kan’s several world tours. Her own solo work has been presented in New York, Boulder, Beijing, Moscow, St Petersburg, Helsinki, San Miguel de Allende, Puebla, Stuttgart, and Kyoto. In addition to her her Butoh career, she works as a performer and choreographer for video sculpture artist Katja Loher and visual performance artist Ayakamay, and has done collaborative work with MARCK on his video art and live performances. She has also been a part of a duo project with Bassist Sean Ali, a trio with composer Takuya Nakamura and 3D mapping stage visualist Martin “juice” Gabor, and various interactive tech, sound, stage, and visual projects; experimental films; music videos; and much more. azumi is constantly at work on wide range of collaborative and solo projects.
More info at azumioe.com
Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) is a Brooklyn, NY, composer, musician, and artist. She produces solo albums, live performances, and film/art soundtracks, and frequently collaborates with artists in film, music, art, dance, multimedia, activism, and poetry, including Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Martin Bisi, Caroline Monnet, Michelle Latimer, and Martha Colburn. She plays violin, Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, pedal steel guitar, sings through a megaphone, and makes field recordings.
Ortman’s notable performances include venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen, MoMA, P.S. 1, Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, SFMoMA, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, The Knitting Factory, CBGB’s, St Marks Church, SITE Santa Fe, Dia Art Foundation, the Wave Farm, National Sawdust, and countless other established and DIY venues in the US, Canada, and Western Europe.
In 2008, she founded the Coast Orchestra, an all–Native American orchestral ensemble that performed a live soundtrack to Edward Curtis’s film In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914) that premiered to sold-out audiences at the opening of the Margaret Mead Film Festival at New York’s American Museum of Natural History and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Recently, Ortman has been the recipient of the 2017 Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Composers and Sound Artists, the 2016 Art Matters Grant, the 2016 Native Arts and Cultural Foundation Fellowship, the 2015 IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts Social Engagement Residency, and the 2014/15 Rauschenberg Residency.
Born into an artistic family, Marton “Juice” Gabor spent most of his time as a kid in painting and sculpting studios. He started to draw and take photos as a teenager. After high school, he became an assistant to the famous photographer Karoly Szelenyi and worked as intern in the Chrome Studio as a graphic designer. He worked as part of the first cycle messenger crew in Budapest and studied at MOME University of Arts and Crafts, where he earned a Media Design Diploma with honors. While still an undergrad, Gabor co-founded Urbanizer Visual crew with Zsiga Bernathy. The crew is one of the first and most prominent VJ crew of Budapest.
Gabor became famous for the visuals he created for concerts, parties, fashion shows, and festivals. He was a designer in the Solid graphic design studio. Touring with bands and solo performances all over Europe, he co-founded and organized VJ Battle, a seasonal VJ meeting and visual jam session. Active as part of messenger life in Budapest, he made designs for races and events, taking part in organizing international messenger races like ECMC and CMWC.
Turning toward new art forms as a VJ at theater shows, fashion shows, and live cinema, Gabor earned his green card and moved to New York City, where he started to work for visual studio Glowing Bulbs making building mappings in the US. After touring with Grammy-winning solo artist Dana Leong overseas, Gabor returned to NYC to create concert visual and stage design for Les Nubians. Recently, he provided the stage mapping for the Output Club NYC for a monthly event series called Grayscale with VJ friend Farkas Fulop. He is also creating digital photo montages for exhibitions of street photography. Current projects include projection mapping in NYC at parties for Forest Dark, Sonic Jungle, SOUQ NYC. He is the proud father of three amazing sons.
Rebekah Heller is a bassoon soloist, collaborative artist, educator, and advocate for new music. As Co-Artistic Director and bassoonist of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Heller has premiered hundreds of new works. Her two solo albums, 100 names and METAFAGOTE, exclusively feature world-premiere recordings of pieces written for and with her by a diverse group of contemporary composers.
This fall saw Heller’s debut as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, playing the music of longtime collaborator Ashley Fure. She has also been a soloist with the Seattle Symphony, the Nagoya Philharmonic, and the New World Symphony. This season sees her continuing to collaborate with a wide array of composers, including Du Yun, Courtney Bryan, and George Lewis on the stages of Met-Live, Miller Theater, National Sawdust, Issue Project Room, and beyond.
Committed to fostering conversations around new ways music can be experienced and shared, Heller has been a featured speaker at the New York Philharmonic’s “Insights at the Atrium”, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Miller Theater, and the Abrons Arts Center.
Rebekah lives in Manhattan.
More info at rebekahheller.com
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Takuya Nakamura has been playing piano, various electronic keyboards and trumpet for decades throughout the world.
Born into a musical family in Tokyo, Japan, Takuya began performing at an early age. He studied at Kunitachi College of Music and earned his Bachelor’s in Music Composition. After he finished his studies in Tokyo, Nakamura moved to Boston to study under George Russell at the New England Conservatory of Music and earned his Master’s degree in composition/jazz performance.
While at the New England Conservatory, he studied piano and improvisation with Paul Blay and Gerri Allen and trumpet with Tim Morrison (Boston Symphony Orchestra). He performed at festivals at Jordan Hall in Boston with John Cage (1991) and György Ligeti (1992). Takuya continued his studies with master classes and lectures by Toru Takemitsu, Hermeto Pascoa, and Muhal Richard.
Takuya performed as an opening act for the Sun Ra Arkestra, one of the most important and instantly recognizable free jazz ensembles in the world. Other performances during this period include projects working with Steve Drully (Experimental Contemporary Music) as well as John Zorn’s Cobra at the Knitting Factory, NY. Takuya also toured the United States with George Russell’s Living Time Orchestra.
In 1994, Takuya moved to New York and became an integral and sought-after part of NYC’s vibrant music scene. With his diverse background, he has distinguished himself in his compositions and performances by fusing uncommon styles of music. His live performances excite both audiences and critics alike. Takuya has performed with such notables as George Russell and Arto Lindsay. He has performed at festivals with György Ligeti, John Cage, Laurie Anderson, and Robert Wilson. World tours include the bands CocoRosie and Jojo Mayer. Additional studio projects include remixes for Quincy Jones.
With his interest in exploring harmony and theory in music, Takuya was introduced to the Lydian chromatic concept by George Russell, as well as through works and interviews from Toru Takemitsu, Miles Davis, and Bill Evans. Takuya’s latest project featuring piano with live electric manipulation is called “Piano Warp”, solo piano collaboration with multimedia dance and interactive visuals.
