BIOS

Erin Leddy | My Mind Is Like An Open Meadow
Erin Leddy is a company members and performer with Hand2Mouth Theatre in Portland, OR. Erin has been with the company for eight years and has been a performer and co-creator in 15 original productions. For Risk/Reward, Erin is performing My Mind Is Like An Open Meadow, one week after it’s premiere at the NW New Works Festival. This intimate performance deals with one woman’s obsession to reveal her grandmother’s inner life.

Oslund + Company/Dance | Flora
Dancers: Jim McGinn and Michelle Rogers
Flora is a reworking of Anatomica (2010) and Fauna (2010) for two dancers. Choreographer Mary Oslund is Artistic Director of Oslund+Company/Dance, a contemporary dance company based in Portland. She has advanced the disincline of contemporary dance through the exploration and creation of new work annually, which has had funding from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Oregon Arts Commission, The New York Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, The National Dance Project, The Regional Arts and Culture Council, and White Bird (current commission for 2010-11 season). Mary Oslund is delighted to participate in this festival produced by Hand2Mouth. www.oslundandco.org

Angela Fair | Self Help
Angela Fair’s solo performances investigate obsession, dissemblance, romantic love and other prevalent mental and emotional pathologies. She explores characters using video, monologue and movement. Unflattering personality trails are fragmented off and magnified to shed light, spark recognition, and provide social satire, as culture becomes increasingly adept at living through personas. Her work has been presented at On the Boards’ NW New Works festival.

Paul Budraitis | Not.Stable. (At all.)
Paul Budraitis is a director, actor, and writer, as well as teacher of acting and stage movement. As a Fulbright grantee, he studied directing at the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy under the mentorship of visionary theatre director Jonas Vaitkus. He is privileged to be collaborating with director Sean Ryan on this piece which will be presented in its entirety at On the Boards in Seattle in February 2011.

Hand2Mouth | Uncanny Valley
Hand2Mouth is a theatre ensemble committed to creating original work. Drawing from dance, music, theatre and design, Hand2Mouth strives to connect honestly with audiences and collaborators, blurring the line between performance and reality. We celebrate the raw, charged potential of the live encounter, and our methods and styles change to meet the demands of the work. Hand2Mouth performances push boundaries towards theatre that is bold and accessible. Hand2Mouth will be performing an excerpt from our new work, Uncanny Valley, which is currently in a state of research and development: a journey, a thought experiment, a speculative performance in 4D. Uncanny Valley is funded in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Council, The Autzen Foundation, and the Kinsman Foundation

Katherine Longstreth | High Seas Wind Easing and Life With Box
Katherine Longstreth grew up in New York City where she began dancing and the 92nd Street Y. Since 1994 she has been working in New York City as a choreographer, performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her dances have been developed through the Fieldwork process and presented by Dance Theater Workshop, David Parker/The Bang Group, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Broome Corner Choreographic Platform Series, Context Theater, Fridays at Noon at the 92nd Street Y, Middlebury College, Performance Mix, the Festival of Independent Dance Artists in Toronto, and the Piccolo Spoeleto Festival in Charleston. Katherine has been a teaching artist for the Lincoln Center Institute and from 1996-1999 she was the Executive Director of The Field,a non-profit arts organization, which serves independent performing artists. She received a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College and a MFA in Choreography from Arizona State University where she received the Dance Department Award for Excellence. This year she moved with her husband and three children to Portland, Oregon.

Mike Pham | I Love You, I Hate You.
Mike Pham is one half of Seattle performance duo Helsinki Syndrome, a creative hybrid of theater, dance, literature, poetry, music and visual art that continues to push the limits of liver performance with past presentations at On the Boards’ NW New Works Festival (Seattle), Risk/Reward (Portland), Incubator Arts Project (New York), and Camden People’s Theatre SPRINT Festival (London). Non-linear, conceptual, and fearless, Mike continues his evolution as an individual artist, storyteller, director, and performer. Part neo-documentary, part death wish, I Love You, I Hate You is an experimental diorama of text-free movement and video art where death, delusion and violence explode in a solo performance of Olympic proportions. www.helsinkisyndrome.org

Cherdonna & Lou | It’s A Salon
Jody Kuehner (Cherdonna Shinatra) and Ricki Mason (Lou Henry Hoover) are contemporary dance artists who began working together in 2004. They soon discovered a synergy of comedic timing and a shared passion for character driven movement. Jody and Ricki inventer Ther Cherdonna and Lou Show to combine their choreographic backgroundswith their desire to create comedic politicized and personal  performance. They are merging movement as the impetus for character development with he artifice of drag to reveal something true. www.cherdonnalou.com