On JULY 7th and 8th at 5:30PM and 7:30PM, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Sitelines 2010 will present the world premiere of A-C-E ONE by Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks at LMCC’s LentSpace, a free, outdoor, contemporary art space located at Canal and Varick Street in Hudson Square.

A-C-E ONE is a multidisciplinary site-specific spectacle that takes full advantage of the unique architectural features of LentSpace. Dancers and musicians are positioned strategically throughout the space, a limousine moves at a glacial pace through a horticultural installation as performers move in and around a sea of shredded paper. Expect to be surprised.

Featuring a score by composer John King performed by the all-female French horn ensemble Genghis Barbie, A-C-E ONE will be performed by Yoshiko Chuma and her frequent collaborators Ursula Eagly, Aaron Mattocks, Yuko Mitsuishi and Ryuji Yamaguchi.

LENTSPACE IS LOCATED ON THE CITY BLOCK AT CANAL, GRAND, VARICK AND AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS Admission is FREE.

A-C-E ONE

YOSHIKO CHUMA & THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

Yoshiko Chuma, Conception, direction, choreography
John King, composition
Gabriel Berry, costumes
Nick Vaughan, space consultant

Producer: Bonnie Sue Stein/GOH Productions NYC

Dancers
Yoshiko Chuma
Ursula Eagly
Aaron Mattocks
Yuko Mitsuishi
Ryuji Yamaguchi

Musicians
Genghis Barbie (4 French horn players from Mars)
Rachel Drehmann
Danielle Kuhlmann
Jacquelyn Adams
Ann Ellsworth

Percussion, Eric John Eignar

Onstage backstage performers: Melissa West, Kaya Nakamura

About the Artists
Under the artistic direction of Yoshiko Chuma, THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS is a New York-based collective of choreographers, dancers, actors, singers, musicians, designers, and visual artists. Since premiering at the 1980 Venice Biennale, this award-winning company has created and performed over 60 original works in the United States, Asia, and Europe. The School of Hard Knocks takes its name from the American idiom meaning to learn things the hard way on the proverbial “street,” and was first used as the title of a performance at the 1980 Venice Biennale. Over the course of the company’s history, more than 1,500 people have performed to wide critical acclaim under Chuma’s direction in theatrical dance concerts, street performances, grand parades, large-scale spectacles and intimate living rooms. Since 2006 the company has been developing and presenting the ongoing dance/installation A Page Out of Order in countries including Albania, Macedonia, and the Manipur region of India. The most recent chapter, called POONARC (not about Romanian cinema), was presented by Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in June of 2009, following a tour of Romania in May. (yoshikochuma.org)

YOSHIKO CHUMA (conceptual artist/choreographer/artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks) has been a firebrand of New York’s downtown dance scene since arriving in 1978. She has created more than 60 full-length company works, commissions and site-specific events for venues in 35 countries, constantly challenging the notion of performing for both audience and participant. Her work has been presented in such diverse venues as Joyce Theater, the Eiffel Tower, Newcastle Swing Bridge, City Center, Lincoln Center, the former National Theater of Sarajevo, the perimeter of the Hong Kong harbor, and an ancient ruin in Macedonia, and in Jordan, among others. She has received fellowships and awards for choreography and career work from John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, NEA, New York Foundation for Artists, Japan Foundation, Meet the Composer Choreographer/Composer Commission and Philip Morris New Works. Chuma has led workshops and master classes and been commissioned to create new work in East and West Europe, Asia, Russia and the U.S. She received a 1984 BESSIE award for choreography and four more Bessies were awarded to her productions in 1992 and 1998. In 2007 she received a Bessie for Sustained Achievement. Chuma was Artistic Director of the Daghdha Dance Company in Limerick, Ireland from 2000-03 and continues to work in Ireland as a guest teacher/choreographer in the Dance MA program of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.

URSULA EAGLY (performer) has been working with Yoshiko Chuma since 2006. She is a core performer in Yoshiko’s “A Page Out of Order” project, through which she has collaborated with awe-inspiring artists in Albania, Japan, Macedonia, and Romania. She creates her own work, and her most recent piece, Fields of Ida, premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in October 2009. Ursula is also currently dancing with Kathy Westwater and Christopher Williams. www.ursulaeagly.org.

AARON MATTOCKS, a Pennsylvania native and Sarah Lawrence College alumnus, studied dance with Viola Farber, Dan Hurlin, Sara Rudner and Mark Morris. He has performed in works by John Jasperse, Christopher Williams, Kathy Westwater, Ursula Eagly, The Little Lord Fauntleroys, and Opera Erratica. He assisted Mr. Morris on the staging of Stravinsky’s Renard for the Tanglewood Music Center. He is a member of OtherShore, performing in works by Annie-B Parson/Paul Lazar and Jodi Melnick. Upcoming: Judy Garland in Happy Days at the Dixon Place Hot Fest (July 22), and a new work by Big Dance Theater in 2011.

YUKO MITSUISHI (performer), from Japan, graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan in 2002 where she majored in drama. She has presented her works at Dance New Amsterdam, Jennifer Muller’s Studio and Movement Research at DTW . She has performed and collaborated with Alexandra Beller, Emily Berry, Catherine Galasso and Makiko Tamura. She enjoys working with Yoshiko Chuma/The School of Hard Knocks.

RYUJI YAMAGUCHI (performer) is a dancer and choreographer originally from Japan. Ryuji studied dance and Chinese at Harvard University and has been actively performing and choreographing in Japan, New York and Jordan for the last 6 years. He currently lives in Amman, Jordan where he teaches dance at the King’s Academy. And has worked with School of Hard Knocks for several years, in Yoshiko Chuma’s projects in Japan, Romania, Jordan and New York City.

MUSIC
JOHN KING, composer, guitarist and violist, has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet; Red {an orchestra}, Ethel; the Albany Symphony/”Dogs of Desire”, Bang On A Can All-Stars; Mannheim Ballet; New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballets de Monte Carlo; as well as the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. His string quartets have also been performed by the Eclipse Quartet (LA) and the Mondriaan Quartet (Amsterdam). His quartet Crucible has premiered many of his compositions at The Stone (June 2007) and The Kitchen (April 2009). He has written 3 operas: herzstück/heartpiece, based on the text of Heiner Müller, premiered at the 1999 Warsaw Autumn Festival and presented at the Kitchen NYC in 2000; la belle captive based on texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, premiered at Teatro Colon/CETC in Buenos Aires in 2003, and toured to London’s ICA (Fronteras Festival) in 2004 and The Kitchen in 2005; and also his most recent opera, Dice Thrown, based on the Stéphane Mallarmé poem, an excerpt of which was performed by New York City Opera as part of its VOX series in May 2008. He has 3 recent CD releases of music for string quartet; 10 Mysteries and AllSteel (Tzadik); and Ethel (Cantaloupe). He was Music Curator at The Kitchen from 1999-2003 and is currently a co-director of the Music Committee at MCDC. He is also the recipient of the 2009 Alpert Award in the Arts for Music Composition.

GENGHIS BARBIE, the leading post post-feminist feminist all-female pop horn quartet is the most recognized chamber ensemble of its generation and beyond. With a combined 26 years of conservatory training, Genghis Barbie brings you a visceral and unadulterated musical adventure. Performing solely arrangements of pop music from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s and today, Genghis Barbie is the most versatile and expansive musical experience on NYC’s classical/pop/rock/jazz/indie/alternative/punk/electro-acoustic scene today. Genghis Barbie was incepted in a unique moment of ingenuity when Alana Gartrell, Jacquelyn Adams, Rachel Drehmann and Danielle Kuhlmann converged at Alana’s bachelorette party. Genghis Barbie hopes to appear on the Ellen Degeneres show within one calendar year.

RACHEL DREHMANN, co-founder of Genghis Barbie, is an innovative horn player with a passion for new music. She is an active component of the New York City music scene and has performed with renowned groups and artists such as Kanye West, the Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic, A Far Cry, Tilt Creative Brass Band, and Princeton Symphony. She appeared in the Music Festival of Santo Domingo, the American Opera Projects, the Tribeca Film Festival, and accompanied Shakira on her album, She Wolf. With the indie band A Whisper in the Noise, Rachel released three albums and toured internationally. A Whisper in the Noise was also featured on the soundtrack of M. Night Shyamalan’s film, Lady in the Water. Rachel is a well-known musician in the theater world, performing in the orchestras for The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, South Pacific, West Side Story, Ragtime, Happiness and the Public Theater’s production of Euripides’ The Bacchae, scored by Philip Glass. In 2008, Rachel was awarded a grant from the International Horn Society’s Meir Rimon Fund and commissioned John Clark’s “Fakes and Snakes.” The Sabine Players, co-founded by Rachel, premiered this work as part of the Chelsea Art Museum’s “Performing Arts at CAM” series.

DANIELLE KUHLMANN, horn, co-founder of Genghis Barbie, has traveled the world, performing in symphony orchestras and chamber music concerts throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. After growing up in Seattle, Washington, she completed her undergraduate studies with Jerome Ashby at the Juilliard School. She has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Brooklyn, Long Island and Westchester Philharmonics, American Ballet Theater and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and new music focused groups: American Composers Orchestra, Metropolis Ensemble and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). She has been a featured soloist with the Seattle and Manila Symphony Orchestras and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. In addition to classical performances, Ms. Kuhlmann can be heard playing various Broadway shows in New York, and television, video game and major motion picture soundtracks. Ms. Kuhlmann is devoted to philanthropic work and has spent the last three summers in the Philippines volunteering for the group Cultures in Harmony, a New York based NGO that promotes cultural diplomacy through music. The group works with both professional and student-level musicians as well as indigenous tribal youth to build bridges of understanding between worlds. (CulturesinHarmony.org). In her spare time, Ms. Kuhlmann runs an online handmade jewelry shop, D’kuhl Jewelry, and sings and plays guitar in the rock band Tatters & Rags in Brooklyn.

JACQUELYN ADAMS, co-founder of Genghis Barbie, began the Suzuki method at the age of three in her hometown of Forth Worth, Texas. At five, she discovered a love for the piano and her natural ability to perform was quickly recognized at the National Guild of Piano Teachers where she was one of the youngest performers ever to memorize and perform 15 two-part Bach Inventions. She showcased as the second place winner of a national “String without Bow” competition in 1997. Jacquelyn performed a Bach Sonata for String Bass on electric bass guitar. Since then she has earned horn performance degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Yale University and is currently a Doctoral of Musical Arts candidate at SUNY Stony Brook. Ms. Adams resides in New York City and has performed with a variety of ensembles such as the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Fort Worth Symphony, Richmond Symphony, Metropolitan Ballet Orchestra, Kanye West, Pavarotti, Il Divo, multiple Broadway pit orchestras, various NYC based jazz orchestras and she also records regularly for NFL Films. Ms. Adams is also on faculty at Lehman College where she is the newest member of the Lehman Woodwind Quintet. http://www.jacquelynadams.com.

ANN ELLSWORTH is the solo horn player with Kristjan Järvi’s Absolute Ensemble, Manhattan Brass, Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble and the alternative horn group Confluence. The New York Times has called her playing, “…outrageous…splendidly projected.” She performs with such pop artists as Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Shakira,Tony Bennett, and can be heard on Chaka Khan’s album, “Classikhan” among others. In addition to recording for film and television, Ann also enjoys performing on early instruments and has performed a lecture recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, performing on the original instruments in their collection. She is also interested in interdisciplinary performance and as a visiting artist at the Lang College of the New School, led many ground-breaking events involving improvisation, dance, videography and landscape architecture. Ann is an active soloist and chamber musician, touring regularly in Europe and the United States with broadcasts on NPR and Public Radio International. She has recently recorded Eric Ewazen’s Horn Concerto with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra and is currently working on a recording of all new works for alphorn solo and small ensembles. Ann is a former member of the Phoenix Symphony and Danish Esbjerg Ensemble, studied at the Eastman and Juilliard Schools and is now on faculty at the Juilliard Pre-College, Stony Brook University, and New York University.

PRODUCTION
Gabriel Berry (Costume Design) has collaborated with Yoshiko Chuma for a long time. Recent work includes Zaide at Lincoln Center and the world premiere of John Adams A Flowering Tree at the New Crowned Hope festival in Vienna, both directed by Peter Sellars. Additional current works include Iphengie in Aulide at Julliard, Orpheus in the Underworld for Glimmerglass Opera and Sarah Ruyle’s Passion Play for the Goodman Theater recently was performed in NYC.

BONNIE SUE STEIN (manager) is the Executive Director and founder of GOH Productions, an arts services organization based in New York, focusing on the creation and development of global arts projects. Since 1988, she has produced dance, theatre and music projects in NYC, East/Central Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia. GOH has managed Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks since 1992. Currently projects include: East Village Dance Project, Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre, Absolute Ensemble, Polli Talu Arts Residency Center (Estonia), Art In Odd Places and Trystette. www.gohproductions.org

The School of Hard Knocks is supported in part by New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency and Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts Japan program.