Tedd Robinson – Monitor

Quirky and funny, fragile and poetic, contemporary choreographer Tedd Robinson's work speaks to the foibles of humanity and the dignity of the human spirit.

"Physical humour of the most superb and subtle kind" - Vancouver Sun

Tedd Robinson, born in Ottawa, Canada, graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University (Toronto, Canada), and studied at The School of The Toronto Dance Theatre and with eminent British visual theatre artist Lindsay Kemp. Robinson first rose to prominence as Artistic Director of Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg, Canada (1984 to 1990), where he created highly theatrical ensemble works. Having returned to Ottawa in 1990 to pursue a solo career, he is now firmly established as a choreographer, educator and solo artist whose critically acclaimed, award-winning and utterly unique works have won him a multitude of commissions and an international schedule of touring and teaching. His critically acclaimed work Rokudo: six destinies in three steps received the 1998 Chalmers National Dance Award.From 1994 to 2000, Robinson was a practicing monk of hakukaze soto zen in Ottawa, Canada. Robinson is Artistic Director of 10 Gates Dancing Inc., a non-profit company formed in 1998 to promote the development and performance of contemporary dance creations.
10 Gates Dancing Website

 

Darren O'Donnell – Monitor

Playwright, author, social acupuncturist, theatre artist, public creative
interventionist...

"Toronto's messiah of experimental theatre. A catalyst for imaginative absurdity, the playwright blows out the walls of conventional theatre sending storyline conformists scurrying for cover." - Steven Berketo, torontostage.com

Creates work that dismantles the barriers between individuals while expanding the definition of theatre, fostering a dialogue between audience members, between the audience and the material and between the performers and the audience. Our goal is to create an activist theatre able to meld polemic with artistic rigour, creating work that is meticulous and
uncompromising both in its study and manipulation of the conventions and tools of theatre and thorough in its examination of political and social ontologies while still maintaining a total commitment to easy accessibility
and entertainment.
Mammalian Diving Reflex's website

Istvan Kantor - Monitor

Performance artist - action based media. installation robotics, video,
performance

"Istvan Kantor's work in video and performance art is on the cutting and critical edge of contemporary art. His is an aggressive and unapologetic aesthetic of excess. Kantor's interdisciplinary, no-holds-barred, neo-Dada art has earned him a large international following and a unique reputation. He embraces technology in order to confront, and revolt against, the mind-numbing and oppressive nature of technology and the power structures it
supports ." Jury citation, Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts, 2004

Istvan Kantor has created a body of work remarkable for its demonic energy, its subversive vision, and its encompassing range. He has explored mail art, music, kinetic sculpture, multi-media installation and, most prominently, performance art and video. He founded an indefinable and conspiratorial movement he called neoism. The intent of Kantor's work has always been to disrupt closed systems of power, political and aesthetic, to lay bare the ways in which technology transforms human bodies and minds into elements of a vast robotic machine, and to confront today's deadening systems of technological control. The concept that most broadly governs Kantor's vision is “accumulation.” “In the land of accumulation all activity remains activated, causing continuous interventions, overlapping structures, sudden changes, global explosions, turmoil, tumult, turbulence, everything happens at once and simultaneously,” Kantor writes. “It's accumulation that makes the earth shake at six o'clock and demolishes the difference between art and life, labour and leisure.” Istvan Kantor's Website