co-artistic directors:
Haruko Crow Nishimura
dancer / vocalist / choreographer /
artistic director
Joshua Kohl
composer / music director/ conductor
creative producer
Nishimura's passion as a director and performer is to question the relationship between audience and performer—to put them in each other’s way, always searching to discover how art can create deeper connections, transformations and awakenings. Kohl's approach to music is dedicated to the exploration and proliferation of genre-free music that utilizes all of the available tools of music-making, from classical instruments to electronics and new inventions. In addition to his work with Degenerate Art Ensemble he is also a passionate conductor of music from symphonic jazz to modern classical to indie rock. Degenerate Art Ensemble has been supported by Creative Capital, MAP Fund and New Music USA. Degenerate Art Ensemble's work Red Shoes was awarded the Music Theatre Now Award from the International Theatre Institute at Swedish Biennale. Their current collaboration with artists Eddy Kwon and Senga Nengudi hosted by Colorado College’s Innovation department and the Cincinnati Center for Contemporary Art, was awarded a 2020 National Performance Network award. Nishimura and Kohl were the joint recipients of the 2020 Artist Trust Innovators Award.
Degenerate Art Ensemble has shown their work throughout the US and Europe known for their large scale dance and theater projects, concerts, site-transforming spectacles and ongoing public experimentation. Recent highlights of the group's work include a major exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in 2011, was commissioned by director Robert Wilson to interpret his work Einstein on the Beach in 2012 and collaborated with the Kronos Quartet in 2013. Also in 2012 Degenerate Art Ensemble was commissioned by the city of Seattle to create a massive site specific work Underbelly in collaboration with Olson Kundig Architects to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair. The group’s 2015 work Predator Songstress premiered at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco in 2015. In of 2016 DAE teamed up with Czech rock legends Uz Jsme Doma for an epic orchestral work inspired by the group's music at the Archa Theatre in Prague with the South Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra. DAE’s newest work Skeleton Flower was first seen as a work in progress at the Spotlight USA Festival in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, had its world premiere in Seattle in 2019, was performed at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Mexico City in August of 2021 and will have its New York premiere in the Spring of 2022. The group premiered their collaboration with sculptor Senga Nengudi and musician Eddy Kwon; Boy mother / faceless bloom at Colorado College and at the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center.
The company
Ian Lucero
cinematography / documentation
Ian has been capturing every movement of the group since before its inception and creates videos that chronicle their history. "I find every subsequent show to be the most demanding, either because it gets grander and/or there is an added detail that I've never seen before. Designing the archival of each performance definitely stretches my imagination."
Leo Mayberry
video artist
Leo works with video, programming, and projection to enhance live performance. He has expanded Degenerate Art Ensemble's storytelling world with motors, mirrors and screen techniques that free video from traditional constraints. Early work in editing and installation gave way to live performance. Leo has accompanied acts from rock to ambient, and organized artists at events such as Seattle's Decibel Festival.
Bruce Tom
DAE live performance and portrait photographer
Bruce is best known for his long-term documentation of the Degenerate Art Ensemble. In recent years, his imagery has become inextricably entwined with Degenerate Art Ensemble’s conception, planning, rehearsal and presentation; it has come to play a central role in how the group sees and understands itself. In addition to DAE, Bruce splits the remainder of his time capturing local art events, theater, the music scene and unique aspects of Seattle culture.
Steven Miller
DAE portrait photographer
Steven Miller's art has been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries and museums, and his photographs are featured in the public collections of the Tacoma Art Museum, Northern Georgia College and State University, and Seattle's Public Art 4Culture, as well as numerous private collections. His photographs have been published across Europe, Japan, and the United States, including articles in The Advocate, NY Arts Magazine, London Gay Times, White Crane, Seattle Times, The Stranger, City Arts Magazine, Seattle Weekly, as well as Milky, a monograph published by DECODE Books.
Willow Fox
Costume collaborator / maker / designer / manager
Willow Fox is a maker who creates useful things for spaces both real and imagined. Her performative installation work has been experienced at home and abroad, with inspirations drawn from local mythologies, forgotten tales, and intuitions of the future. She earned her BFA Summa Cum Laude from Cornish College of the Arts, after her previous lifetime as a member of the Harlot Saints medieval music ensemble.
Jessica Trundy
Lighting Design
Jessica is a Seattle based lighting designer and theatre maker focused on new works and collaborative story-telling. She holds a M.F.A. in Lighting Design from the University of Washington, was a Founder of Washington Ensemble Theatre, and works as a Architectural Lighting Designer with dePelecyn studio and freelances as a Lighting Designer for performance and live events.
Alenka Loesch
costume design
Alenka Loesch is an interdisciplinary artist. She graduated with honors from UT Austin, with a BA in Art History, receiving her MA from San Francisco State University in Interdisciplinary Arts. She has been a dance theatre performer, choreographer, costume, set and fashion designer. She has designed for many theatre productions abroad and at home and made couture dresses for NY and LA Fashion Week. Her work is deeply rooted in reverence for nature, and she strives to create work that invites the viewer into deeper connection with the natural world and the magic that can be found there.
regular contributors
Robb Kunz
sound artist / installation artist
Robb has been with Degenerate Art Ensemble as sound artist, producer and engineer for 10 years. His handmade electronics and kinetic structures are skillfully adapted from re-purposed materials. When activated, they broadcast discreet elements that combine across a large acoustic venue to form elaborate sonic compositions. Constantly shifting, these 'sculptures' activate to make spaces seem suddenly alive. Robb has also recorded, mixed and co-produced many of Degenerate Art Ensemble's albums and is currently in the process of mixing DAE's orchestral collaboration with Uz Jsme Doma.
Elizabeth Jameson
visual artist / production designer
Elizabeth Jameson is a Seattle-based artist and musician who does sculpture, drawing, painting, performance art, and costume design. She has a BA from Western Washington University and an MFA from Mills College, where she received the Jay De Feo award for outstanding MFA graduate. In 2004 she was selected by The Stranger as "One to Watch" in its annual "genius" awards.She is represented by G. Gibson Gallery in Seattle.
recent collaborators
Alan Maskin is a principal and owner of Olson Kundig, where he leads an interdisciplinary team of architects, designers, visual artists and researchers. His team designs buildings, parks and gardens, installations, sculpture, digital art, graphic novels and film.
Mischa Jakupcak
VR Filmmaker, producer
Mischa Jakupcak champions original and authentic stories in films and virtual reality. She seeks projects that challenge, provoke and inspire consciousness through innovative storytelling. She earned a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Arizona in Creative Writing and Philosophy. Mischa received an MA in Filmmaking, focusing on world cinema, from the London Film School. Mischa is a founding partner for Zoo-Break Productions.
Zoobreak Productions
Tom Wiseley
Production Manager, Lighting Designer, Scenic Builder, Performer
Tom Wiseley works in many capacities—see twiseley.com. Most important in choosing his endeavors are quality, innovation and integrity.
Colin Ernst
sculpture
Colin has been collaborating with the Degenerate Art Ensemble since its inception, contributing a wild parade of ride-able rolling contraptions and wearable musical instruments. He is grateful to be a part of their ongoing creative process because it always means he gets to combine his metal sculpture and music sensibilities into a new and unusual project. Besides his work with Degenerate Art Ensemble he was a founding member of Circus Contraption and a composer and trombonist with Orkestar Zirkonium.
Wyly Astley
Costume collaborator / maker / designer
Wyly Astley is a teaching artist and designer who works primarily with natural and found materials to create costumes, sculpture and site-specific, outdoor installations.
Neal Wilkinson
scenic designer
Neal is a New York based designer and technical leader. He has worked as designer for the Builders Association for the past several years as well as being production manager for Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players with whom he toured extensively. Neal also writes, directs and designs his own works in New York.
Dohee Lee
dancer / singer
Degenerate and generate. Collect, disperse, recollect, share and ponder together to create. This is Dohee's experience with Degenerate Art Ensemble as a vocalist, dancer, musician and drummer. Her performance style uses collaborative creativity to transcend from the traditional and explore human emotion.
Douglas Ridings
performer / dancer
Douglas Ridings performs and teaches Odissi with the Urvasi Dance Ensemble and has also collaborated with Saint Genet, P.A.N,. dappin' butoh and many others. He teaches Yoga at 8 Limbs Yoga Centers and approaches performance itself as kind of Yoga practice.
Okanomodé
[pronounced: uh-kahn-uh-mah-day]
performance artist / expressionist / songwriter / shape-shifter
Okanomodé is an artist of the highest order. A renaissance. An exhibition. The glamazon warrior born of grit, gut, & holy paganfire. He’s the grandson of a pastor, & protégé of afronauts, poets, sex therapists & porn stars. He has rocked festivals, living rooms, pubs, parks, theaters, & bedrooms all over & is excited to go deeper into realm of creation with Degenerate Art Ensemble.
Ben Zamora
lighting / installation
Ben Zamora is continuously creating new work that challenges the relationship of the viewer to their environment and addresses universal themes of birth, death, and transcendence. His most recent large-scale light installations have been seen at the Frye Art Museum, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and the Suyama Space.
STAFF AND ADVISORS
Ashley Hickey
Assistant to the directors