Echo::systems: The Desert -- Facts At A Glance

CREATOR/COMPOSER/CHOREOGRAPHER, GRISHA COLEMAN:
Born and raised in New York City, Grisha Coleman is currently a fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. From 1991-1994 she danced with the Urban Bush Women. In 1995, Coleman created the music-performance group HOTMOUTH, which toured extensively nationally and internationally and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for “Most Unique Theatrical Experience.”

“I am using the experimental elements of this environment to create an alternate reality,” states Coleman who favors the term “Science Fiction” when describing the project and when re-imaging the desert’s ecosystem. The concept behind echo::system is to find symmetry between science and art. The scientific data the installation is modeled after, serves as the blue print for the artificial desert environment, the evolutionary histories of the species living in the environment, are dreamed up by Coleman and her creative team (sound, video, light, architecture and performers).

COLLABORATIONS:
For the development of echo::system, Coleman has worked with multiple collaborators working outside of specific art disciplines, conducting residencies for research and development at the Banff New Media Institute in Canada, Beall Center for Art and Technology at UC Irvine, and California Institute for the Arts. Coleman is a graduate of the College of Letters at Wesleyan University and received her MFA in Composition and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts.

The echo::system series boasts a dynamic team of collaborators from the fields of the performing arts, natural sciences, computer technology and metaphysics, including creator and composer/choreographer Grisha Coleman; population biologist Mike Bryant; architect and designer John Oduroe and Pittsburgh-based Lubetz Architects; videographers Maya Ciarrocchi and Peter Kirn; lighting designer Tony Mulanix; sound designer Leon Rothenberg and Mutt Dog; fashion designer Namiko Ogawa; and writer Onome Ekeh. The piece is performed, vocals and movement, by Grisha Coleman, Anitra Brooks, Sherwood Chen, Wendell Cooper, Reggie Ellis Crump, Soomi Kim, and a group of skateboard artists. Produced by Heidi Riegler.

STUDIO FOR CREATIVE INQUIRIES:
Carnegie Mellon’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, founded in the College of Fine Arts in 1989, aims to support creation and exploration in the arts, especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts, science, technology and the humanities, and impact local and global communities. The College of Fine Arts is a community of nationally and internationally recognized artists and professionals organized into schools of Architecture, Art, Design, Drama and Music, and their associated centers and programs.

Tue Sep 4, 10:44 PM