The BIG ASS Spring is Finally Here Show’s
BIG ASS Program!!!

By Ariel Len
A Zoey’s Projects Production
www.zoeysprojects.com

Part One

Opening remarks, surprise announcements, and introduction of each Artist in the show throughout it, by Ariel Len of Zoey’s Projects

I Wish I had a Dog’s Life!!!
   Celebrating the Visual Art of Daniel Leonard (multi-medium visual art and music piece)
   A Special Tribute and Celebration Performance for our Opening Act
      Music selection and Artistic editing by Ariel Len of Zoey’s Projects
      Technical Editing and Second Artistic Editor - J. P. Hunter
      Visual Art Titles, Songs, and Musicians are listed on each piece

Eggs in an Egg Crate
   A tribute to the Maritime’s Visual Artist Mary Pratt
   Audio performance by Vancouver Poet Jane Munro of her own work

Rain on a Meadow and Good 4 Us
   Live songs by Tom Smarda music, lyrics, guitar playing and singing all by Tom


Now you get your first break to process what you have just experienced with each other, and to mix and mingle, network, sign up for my e-mail list, and hydrate yourselves in your chosen manner! Enjoy!!!

Part Two

Astrology as an Act of Resistance
   Nadiya Shah presents a reading of a piece

Tsutao’s Journey
   Celebrating the Visual Art of Tsutao-Ooto-Machida (a multi-medium visual art and music piece)
      Music selection and Artistic editing by Ariel Len of Zoey’s Projects
      Technical Editing and Second Artistic Editor - J. P. Hunter

   Music:

Oye Como Va Carlos Santana	Moonsglow Gaelle
Untitled 5 Andrew Thomas	Whatever Lola Wants Sarah Vaughan
Graveyard Train Creedence Clearwater Revival	Look at Little Sister Stevie Ray Vaughan
Master Blaster Jamin’ Stevie Wonder	I’m Not Like Everybody Else The Chocolate Watchband

The Bikini
Featuring a journey into the bizarre mind of Ariel Len of Zoey’s Projects (as Judy Davis said, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!”) (multi-medium performance art piece involving short, silent film, dance, acting, physical comedy, high quality, amazing special effects done with low cost film software, performance wordscaping, weird props, unusual events, meditation, a tribute to “I Dream of Jeannie,” and Special Surprise Guests/Hot New Film Stars, as discovered by Ariel Len of Zoey’s Projects)
      Technical Editor, Second Artistic Editor and Co-Cinematographer: J. P. Hunter
      Film portion created, written, directed, produced, Performed in, Artistic Editing, and Co-cinematography work by Ariel Len
      Performance Wordscape portion written and performed live simultaneously with the film portion by Ariel Len


Now you get your second break to process what you have just experienced (Good Luck with that one!) with each other, and to mix and mingle, network, sign up for my e-mail mailing list, and hydrate yourselves in your chosen manner! Enjoy!!!

Part Three

Let’s Dance!!!
   Celebrating the Dance Photography of Peter Lear (Multi-Medium Photography and Music Piece)
      Music selection and Artistic editing by Ariel Len of Zoey’s Projects
      Technical Editing and Second Artistic Editor: J. P. Hunter

   Music:

If You Like Our Music Get Up & Move Lakeside	Beat Goes on Madonna
Dancing With Myself The Donnas	Groove Thang Zhane
High Voltage AC/DC	Stamp Your Feet Donna Summer
Caught in a Moment Sugababes	Boom Shake the Room Will Smith
Dance Floor Zapp and Roger	We Danced Anyway Deana Carter
You Should be Dancing Bee Gees	Bustin’ Out Rick James
After the Dance Marvin Gaye	Dance to the Music Sly and the Family Stone
Blame it on the Boogie The Jacksons	Mary Jane’s Last Dance Tom Petty

Master Your Hands, Your Feet, Your Words and Your Thoughts
   Audio performance of her poetry by Vancouver Poet Jane Munro

Dance Painting Demystified
   Performed Live and Spontaneously Created by Ariel Len (multi-medium piece audio text, followed by dance and music)
   Music:   Green Onions   Booker T. and the M.G.s


Now this is your final break before Dave and his ensemble’s grand finale of the show, so make it a good one! Last chance to process what you have just experienced with each other, and to mix and mingle, network, sign up for my e-mail mailing list, and hydrate yourselves in your chosen manner! Enjoy!!!

Part Four - The Grand Finale

The Parahumans – A Show Within A Show!!! (approx 40 mins)

Sticky Feet
Choreographed & Danced by: Jannine Saarinen
Music: The Whites

URBANE
Concept by: Vanessa Jane Kimmons
Performed by: Nicole Nigro
Artwork by: Jesse Catibog, Juan Esguerra, Miguel Hernandez
Music: Nicolas Jaar

Empty
Choreographed & Danced by: Shirin Yousefi
Music: Dave Holland, Barre Phillips

Madeleines
Choreographed & Danced by: Juanita Suarez

Looking For My Love
Choreographed & Danced by: Keiko Ninomiya 

Untitled
Improvisation: Emily Law
Live Music: Joe Law

La Conquistadora
Choreographed & Danced by: Pastel Supernova
Music: Pepe Romero

Closing announcements and remarks by Ariel Len

Closing bows for Audience, all Artists, Crew and Staff

Artists/Performers in Order of Appearance:

Daniel Leonard graduated from Ryerson Interior Design and created residential interiors in Canada and the U.S. for the past 20 years. He now focuses on his artwork doing painting and sculpture. His next show will be at The Papermill Gallery in 2013, and will be an exploration of shamanic art, sculptures and paintings of animal spirits he sees in his shamanic journeys. Daniel has a healing practice in Reiki and Shamanism and teaches groups in Toronto and Montreal. www.dogcrazy.ca

Jane Munro’s most recent release is a CD of selected readings from her five books of poetry, Jane Munro: After the Fire (2011). Her collections include Active Pass (Pedlar Press: 2010) and Point No Point (McClelland & Stewart: 2006). In 2007, Munro won the Bliss Carman Award for poetry. www.janemunro.com

Tom Smarda spent ten years during the 70′s hitch-hiking around North America, playing music from the Yukon to Guatemala, from the east coast to the west coast, in Canada and the United States. Being exposed to many cultures, witnessing the ongoing destruction of the Earth, and living next to poverty and injustice inspired him to write songs which creatively and compassionately address important universal concerns. He believes that we can house, clothe and feed one another without destroying the Earth in the process.

Nadiya Shah is leading the New-Age Revolution. She sings, dances, films, writes, and speaks her way to personal evolution. Nadiya is an internationally syndicated Sun Sign Columnist and is one of the few people in the world to hold an M.A. in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination, from the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Nadiya is the Producer and Host of the WebTV show “Nadiya Shah Productions”, celebrating Astrology, New-Age Spirituality, and Art. www.nadiyashah.com

“Hallucinatory and Explosive World”
Tsutao Machida’s work originates in a love for diverse material and the compulsion to express himself. Thoroughly corporeal, richly layered, and deceptively simple, his work occupies a shifting space between figurative and abstract, impressionist and expressionist; all and none, thus remaining uniquely his own. Tsutao Machida has chosen to roll an imaginary boulder up a hill. In doing so he enables himself to meditate, self-medicate and cocoon in his own hallucinatory world. His is the self-made world of self-reflective struggle. www.machida.ca

Peter Lear is a photographer based in Toronto. He specializes in live performance photography. He’s also interested in other forms of photography such as landscape and street photography. In addition to working with contemporary digital technology, Peter keeps a darkroom for film work. www.fotodances.com

Ariel Len Founded Zoey’s Projects to Create, Produce and Direct both Solo and Group Projects in Every Possible Arts Medium, to Celebrate Womyn and People of all Diversities and Cultures, both Visible and Invisible. She is a Filmmaker whose feature length Doc/Experimental Film “I Ate the Hole Thing” premiered at GiRLFeST Hawaii, and was at the Industry Forums for both Hot Docs, and The Freun (Women’s) International Film Festival. She has also created many Multi-Medium/Integrated Arts Projects, Paints large scale Canvases, and does live Performance Wordscaping around Toronto. She has Invented Wordscapes (Prose combined with Poetry and Dialogue) and a new way of Illustrating these Wordscapes on the page, as well as Creating a new method called Dance-Painting. In addition, She is one of Canada’s only Professional Dancers who has trained Herself to put down Her cane and Dance all of Her own Works, which She also Choreographs, Performs Live, and for which She Designs Props, Costumes, and Selects and Cuts together the Music. She is Thrilled to Welcome You to see all of the Talented Artists, Crew and Volunteers at Her One Night Only Show, “The BIG ASS Spring is Finally Here Show!!!” www.zoeysprojects.com


The Parahumans – Biographies

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR – DAVE WILSON
The Parahumans was formed in 1992, with an emphasis on collaboration within a diverse range of performing arts, with dance being central. The company has performed several times in Toronto’s fringe dance festival (fFIDA) and at Dance Ontario’s Dance Weekend. Other appearances include: Residance, RED Cabaret, Small Potatoes, Series 8:08, Artist's Play, Eros, Thanatos and the Avant Garde, Nuit Blanche, da da Dance Festival. The company participated in the 1995 Resolution Dance Festival (London) and toured England in 2002 and 2003, teaching and performing in schools, colleges, universities and professional venues. Past productions have incuded: Plato Was A Raver (2011/2001); D3 Branded (2011); My Room Was White (2009); My Mind Is Going (2008); Who Are These People? (2005); As Above, So Below (2003); Pillow in the Temple (2000). Dance films have included Cast in Stone (1997), La Danza (1998), Stars of Sparta (2005), Out of Sight (2006); Pressing Home (2006), Boy Dancer (2011) - Best Short Film, Astoria Long Island City NY Film Festival. Upcoming - Charismatica, May 3-6, @ Dancemakers, The Distillery, Toronto

Vanessa Jane Kimmons is a dance artist who lives and works in Toronto and is currently completing the first year of her MFA at York University. VJK most often works with improvisation, drawing from her personal experiences and those of her dancers. Physically, she is interested in combining contemporary dance structures with popular culture and subcultures (particularly street dance) - whether it is music, text, movement, costume, etc. For example, in her recent work Bigfooted she used the structure of a contemporary dance piece to provide an absurdist frame for urban dance in a hilarious and moving solo.

Emily Law (with Joe Law – Vocal Music) is a graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and The Etobicoke School of the Arts. She is a founding member of the Toronto house dance crew Warehouse Jacks and DiscoLoveChild. Emily has enjoyed working with Kaha:wi Dance Theatre for the past six years. She has also worked with Valerie Calam, D.A. Hoskins, Brendan Jensen, Alias Dance Projects, Gadfly, The Chimera Project, The Parahumans, Event Horizon Dance, Piotr Biernat and was a resident artists at Sound Travels 2006. She has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore award and a Gemini for her work with Kaha:wi Dance Theatre.

Nicole Nigro is an independent contemporary dance artist based out of Toronto. She is a performer, educator and emerging choreographer. Nicole graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and obtained an Honours BFA in Dance from York University. She has had the privilege of dancing as a guest artist with The Danny Grossman Dance Company, Event Horizon Dance, Dance Theatre David Earle, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Toronto Dance Theatre and various independent choreographers. Nicole is currently on faculty at Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre.

Keiko Ninomiya is originally from Japan and a graduate of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She is a Contemporary, Butoh and Balinese Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher and Gamelan musician and co-director of AKA Dance and Toronto Gamelan Orchestra & Balinese dance. She has danced with Corpus, William Yong, Masumi Sato, Hiroshi K. Miyamoto, Mari Osanai, Matjash Mrozewski, Lincoln Shand and Denise Fujiwara among others. She is a co-recipient of the Paula Citron fFIDA Award (2003)

Jannine Saarinen graduated from the Goerge Brown College Dance Performance Studies Program in 2003. Since then she has performed for Ballet Espressivo, Viv Moore, Marlee Cargill, and Company Blonde. In 2006, Jannine created Jay9 Dance Projects to choreograph and produce modern dance works that include elements of theatre as well as other dance forms. Her choreography has been presented in shows such as Junction Arts Festival, SummerWorks Theatre Festival, Dance Ontario-Nuit Blanche 2009, and the Made in Canada/Fait au Canada Dance Festival: WYSIWYG Series. Jannine currently enjoys teaching dance at PSB Dance Academy and Swansea School of Dance.

Juanita Suarez was born in Bogotá, Colombia and studied contemporary dance at ASAB Superior Academy of Arts of Bogotá.  Moving to Toronto and in 2011, she graduated from the Professional Training Program of the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Currently, Juanita is finishing her BFA in Dance at York University, where she was also teaching dance to seniors. She is a founding member of Warm Laundry, a collective created to produce work with her friends. Juanita would like to contribute to the development of professional dance in Colombia. She presented her first piece Muy cerca Is this too close to you? at Fresh Blood 2012 and is excited to be presenting for the second time the piece Madeleines.

Pastel Supernova is an uninhibited artist who uses her femininity as the prime stimulus for everything she creates. Classically trained in ballet, modern and jazz dance, Pastel started her professional career choreographing and dancing for contemporary dance companies before moving into the entertainment industry and touring international stadiums. In 2007 she began reviving finishing school ethics and founded Pastel Supernova Enterprises under which she teaches classes such as Heels At Homel. She now focuses on sharing her world through cabaret shows, burlesque performances, music and pinup art. She fuses her Hispanic heritage with her creative work and takes advantage of her passion, love for pin-ups and humor.

Shirin Yousefi is a dancer and choreographer based in Toronto. She studied Dance at York University, and when possible she travels around the world studying Butoh. Her teachers include Denise Fujiwara, Yumiko Yoshioka, and Natsu Nakajima. Last Summer Shirin performed in a collaboration between Masaki Iwana and Ken Mai at the Ex.it 2011 Festival in Broellin, Germany


Christie Lites would like to share its support of Ariel Len and Zoey’s Projects.  I am very proud to be able to support local productions such as this and look forward to being a part of future projects.
Graeme Rivers Christie Lites Account Manager 1-800-668-2207


Special Thanks to . . .
You the Audience for believing in My projects, and for attending to support all of the Wonderful Talent, Crew and Staff You just saw/experienced, to all of the Artists Listed above, You blew me away as always with Your Creativity!, to Dave, (another Person who I will probably owe for life!), to J.P. Hunter (the other arm I need to create all the technical parts of my work!) to Graeme Rivers for the loan of the Strobe light and the beautiful gels in one of Zoey’s Projects special theme colours - lavender, (the other being purple), the Mystery Person who loaned me the money to rent this space, (Yes I know I owe You, but as usual I have a new plan which I am announcing tonight, so I hope you don’t need a defibrillator!) the Gladstone Staff, including but not limited only to: Penny, Chip, Kaleb, Andrew, Brendan, Byron, Robert, Steve, Matt, and Madison, and everyone across the Toronto, Ontario, and Canadian communities (theatres, arts organizations, dance organizations, (Hello Dance Ontario!) bars, restaurants, poetry and music open mic events, clubs, etc. etc. we are talking well over 100 places I sent info to on-line or delivered it to in person) who supported this project by letting me make announcements, leave flyers, and post things on their websites and bulletin boards, both for my Call For Artists and for promoting my show! Get in line, because I am in Your debt also!

We hope that You had a great time! Knowing the People I chose and Their Work, I am sure that You did! I am very Honoured and Proud that They participated, and represented Themselves, The Parahumans, and Zoey’s Projects so amazingly! Check out Their websites and support Their Work!


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