Friday Sep 10, 9:30 to10:30 during Art Crawl Odradek trio of improvising multi-instrumentalists.
Post-crawl performance, 11:00 pm: Meiko Ando and Odradek trio, in an improvised collaboration, celebrating the launch of the print set “Odradek” (on exhibit in the gallery) along with CD by the Odradek trio.
Meiko Ando is a printmaker and also an independent solo dancer in Butoh style based in Toronto (and a longtime collaborator with Artword Theatre).
Odradek is an improvising trio of multi-instrumentalists: James Bailey: (radios, theremin, amplified objects, turntable, magnetic tape, electronics); Michelangelo Iaffaldano: (clarinet, guitar, accordion, homemade instruments); Andy Yue: (analog synthesizer, piano, percussion, electronics, electro-acoustic keyboards) http://www.myspace.com/odradektoronto
Odradek cultivates collaborations with a variety of artists in different media and traditions, from noise to Georgian folk music, from Butoh dance to jazz. They like to combine traditional instruments, electronics, found objects and invented and homemade sound sources.
For more on Meiko Ando, …
Meiko Ando, a Toronto-based dancer and choreographer, graduated from University of Waterloo with a BA in dance in 1987 and went to Tokyo for three years to perform as a Butoh dancer and to research Japanese traditional arts. Since returning to Toronto, the long term collaboration with musician Roderick Zalameda has produced many solo dances which were presented in theatres in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Mexico City and Xalapa. She has also collaborated with visual artist Judith Sandiford on two theatrical dance projects Onibaba and Fire, Air, Earth and Water, both with live projections (2002-2004), performed at Artword Theatre, as well as a video Onibaba’s Cave (2006-2008), exploring the relationship of dance and the visual environment. Meiko Ando integrates her dance with the movement of textures, light designs and sculptures which submerges the viewer in a surreal atmosphere of legends and rituals.
Meiko Ando is also an accomplished printmaker. Her linocut prints also explore a surreal world of beautiful imagery where nature and figure and legend are intertwined, where one is transforming into the other.
Biography emphasing Meiko’s art career:
Meiko Ando (b. Tokyo, Japan) is a printmaker and dancer/choreographer based in Toronto who received a B.A. from University of Waterloo where she studied fine arts and dance. Meiko was an artist-in residence for the internationally recognized artist group Boreal Art/Nature in Quebec. In Toronto she has exhibited at Artword Theatre & Gallery and at the Creative Spirit Art Centre. In 2006 her work was chosen for juried print show at John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto. She was a recipient of Arts Toronto Protégé Honors in Toronto (1999). Recent publications of her work include “Woman Critiqued” (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2006) and “Bad Girls of Japan” (Palgrave Macmillan, N.Y.C., 2005). In 2007, Meiko was invited to create a linocut for the print portfolio BESTIARIO & NAHUALES 2, on the theme of Bestiary (beasts) and Nahuales (guardian animal spirits), an international collaboration presented by Arceo Press at Casa Michoacan Gallery in Chicago. This exhibition travelled to the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas. In June 2008, an exhibit of prints by Meiko was part of the World Washi Summit organized by the Japan Foundation in Toronto.
The images of Meiko’s prints often emerge as a result of Meiko’s dance performances. The images are dreamlike in a sense that it is about the unknown that exists but invisible to our eyes.
