Michael Sakamoto - Interdisciplinary Artist

Anatta

Choreographed and directed by Michael Sakamoto and Waewdao Sirisook
Music and sound by Bob Bellerue and Amy Knoles

Upcoming performance:
December 19-20 - Bangkok International Butoh Festival

Past performances:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Chiang Mai University Art Center, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA
Conduit Dance, Inc., Portland, OR

Photos from Los Angeles premiere - Click here...

Photos from Chiang Mai preview performance - Click here...

Anatta is a program of new collaborative works by acclaimed new music and sound art composers Amy Knoles and Bob Bellerue and dancer/performers Michael Sakamoto and Waewdao Sirisook. Combining electronic mixology, lo-tech invention, Butoh, contemporary performance, and traditional Thai dance, these artists delve into contemplative physical practices and imagery based in Buddhist concepts such as impermanence/permanence, joy/suffering, and form/emptiness to express a benevolent core of human experience and mind/body/spirit integration.

BIOS:

Waewdao Sirisook is a choreographer, dancer, and costume designer from Northern Thailand’s Lanna region. As a professional traditional and contemporary dancer, Ms. Sirisook has participated in international cultural exchange programs with the Tourist Authority of Thailand since her teenage years, performing in cultural missions throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. In 2002, she studied Balinese dance in Bali, Indonesia. Ms. Sirisook’s choreography focuses on expressing the diversity of the authentic traditional Lanna arts and culture. Her intention is to maintain the root of the original arts and culture of her own region and bring it to diverse audiences. Ms. Sirisook received a fellowship to participate in the Asian Pacific Performing Exchange 2006 and has been funded for two years by a major fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council to complete her Dance MFA degree at UCLA. Ms. Sirisook also participates in the non-profit organization, LA Thai Kids, providing traditional Thai dance lessons to the Los Angeles Thai community.

Bob Bellerue is a composer and noise artist based in New York City. Over the last 20 years, he has been involved in a wide range of live creative weirdness - homemade percussion ensembles, Balinese gamelan, dance, performance art, sound scores, and installation art. For the last eight years, he’s been primarily focused on live experimental electronic noise art and has toured extensively in the Western United States as well as Europe and Indonesia. Bob was formerly based in Los Angeles, where he ran the sub-garde, experimental music/performance space, the Il Corral, and curated the Beyond Music series and festival. He is active in various ensembles (including KILT, Feed the Dragon, Purple Pansy and LAMFs) and is engaged in long-term performance projects with choreographer Wanda Z. Gala. He currently runs the Anarchymoon Recordings record label. Website at halfnormal.com.

Amy Knoles (Composer, Musician, Multimedia Artist) is one of the leading international new music artists out of Southern California in the last two decades. She tours globally as a soloist performing computer assisted live electronic music with electronic percussion controllers and linear/interactive video. Amy is the Executive Director of the California E.A.R. Unit and also works with Kronos Quartet, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Collage Dance Theater, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Ensemble Modern of Frankfurt, The Bang On A Can All Stars, and Basso Bongo. Amy has worked with John Cage, Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, Louis Andriessen, Don Preston, Frank Zappa, Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Tod Machover, Flea, Quincy Jones, Milton Babbitt, Charles Wournien, M. Kagel, John Luther Adams, John Adams, and many others.

Recent commissions include: a sound environment for the J. Paul Getty Museum; a performance score for “Sleeping With The Ambassador,” Collage Dance Theater; BELGO, a piece commissioned by Vicki Ray for solo pianist and electronics; and Rachel Rosenthal's final solo work, “Ur-Boor.” Amy has recorded nearly 30 CD's of new music and is proud to announce the release of her solo recordings "Men in the Cities" and "2 x 10 x 10 x 10 + 1", on the Echograph Label. Ms. Knoles has recorded for Sony Classics, Echograph, Cold Blue, Barking Pumpkin, CRI, Voyager CD-ROM, New Albion, Nonesuch, New World, O.O. Discs, C.B.S., R.C.A., Relativity, and Crystal Records. Amy is a recipient of the “UNESCO International Prize for the Performing Arts-2000,” the 2001 Lester Horton Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music for Dance,” 1999-2000 "Individual Artist Fellowship" Award from C.O.L.A. to create an hour long multi-media work "2 x 10 x 10 x 10 + 1" and she was the 1996 ASCAP Foundation " Composer-in-Residence at the Music Center of Los Angeles."

Amy has headlined on the "Sacred Rhythm Festival" in Bali and Kyoto, the Audio Art Festival, Crakow, Video Topiques, Les Musees des Strasbourg, Ojai Festival, the "Totally Huge New Music Festival," Australia, "Sunshine on Noir," Denmark, the Utah Festival and performed on the Helsinki Festival, the Spoleto Festival, Sommer Theater Festival-Hamburg, The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, The Cyber Arts Festival, The Eesti Festival, The Aspen Dance Festival, at Het Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Yale University, the Julliard Conservatory of Music, and others. Amy received her MFA from California Institute for the Arts.