Deborah Slater Studio 210 Announces New Artists in Residence

Since it's inception in 2012, Deborah Slater's Studio 210 Summer Artist Residency Program has offered space, mentorship, and performance opportunities to talented experienced & emerging artists in the Bay Area. It's a time to delve into artistic practice without the concerns of paying for rehearsal rental or creating a marketable product for funders and the public... a true chance to focus on the development of artistic work.

After receiving a record number of applications and conducting a panel review process, Deborah Slater Dance Theater has selected Marina Fukushima and Beth Wilmurt as Studio 210's Resident Artists for 2015. Fukushima and Wilmurt were chosen out of a large pool of talented artists due to their innovative artistic ideas, the strength of their proposed projects, and the intersecting themes of age explored in their work.

For her residency, Marina Fukushima will be developing her work "Place for Family in Dance," created in collaboration with her parents Hiroki Fukushima and Michiko Fukushima. Three years ago, Fukushima's parents immigrated to the US to live with her and continue pursuing their careers as visual artists. The project will bring together her practice as a dancer, her mother's practice as a ceramics artist and painter, and her father's practice as a metal sculptor to explore how family influences the creation of artwork. This interdisciplinary and intergenerational work will bring the Fukushima family together on stage to tell their story.

For her residency, Beth Wilmurt will be developing her work "TEN," a performance about artistic history, age, and power to be performed by Wilmurt and a ten year-old performer. The work is Wilmurt's personal response to the past ten years of the Bay Area's local arts scene. It's a meditation on aging and the opportunities time's passing affords us and steals from us. She will develop the text for the work with contributions from two ten-year olds, Asha Sager and Emma Jean Brown, with Sager performing with Wilmurt on stage. Sager, the ten year-old performer, serves as a narrator, a demarcator of the years, and a symbol of youth as Wilmurt performs a work inspired by ten chosen performances from her artistic history.

Fukushima and Wilmurt will spend two months in Studio 210 in an intensive rehearsal process while receiving mentorship from Deborah Slater. The residency will culminate in two evenings of performance with both artists showing their work each night. In the second half, and equally important part of each evening, the audience will engage with the artists in an in-depth conversation to provide feedback, insight, answer the artists' questions and help shape the future of these two developing projects.

About Marina Fukushima:

Marina Fukushima (born in Tokyo, Japan) is a contemporary dancer and choreographer based in San Francisco. Her choreography has been presented at CounterPULSE, Joe Goode Annex, KUNST-STOFF arts fest, West Wave Dance Festival, and ODC Theater. From 2013-14, in collaboration with visual designer Olivia Ting, she created the dance film Wrinkle in the Horizon and the multimedia dance performance Room in a Pinhole. She has been an Artist in Resident at Treasure Hill Artist Village in Taipei and received Grants from Theatre Bay Area CA$H and Zellerbach Family Foundation. She has worked with Epiphany Productions, Lenora Lee Dance, Tableau Stations, ODC, project agora, KUNST-STOFF, and Mark Foehringer Dance Project, and toured across the United States and internationally in Germany, Greece, Japan and Peru. She received her BFA in Dance from Butler University and MFA in Dance from the University of Iowa.

About Hiroki Fukushima:

Hiroki Fukushima (born in Yamaguchi, Japan) is a Japanese metal artist who works primarily with iron, copper, and aluminum to create free-standing and hanging sculptures and functional objects (since 1972). He graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, where he received B.F.A in Crafts and M.F.A in Metal Hammering. In 1974, he established his art studio Rottan in Yokohama, Japan and has since been doing commission works for museum, temple, restaurant and residence throughout Japan. Works include: sculpture, relief wall, door, gate, grating, signage, lighting fixture, and craft. In 2012, Hiroki Fukushima moved to the United States to continue developing his artistic explorations at his home studio in San Francisco and at the Crucible in Oakland.

About Micihiko Fukushima:

Michiko Fukushima (born in Tokyo, Japan) is a ceramics artist and teacher specializing in China painting and drawing. Her works often portray surreal scenes of botanical life and the mischievous play of children. She has been drawing since her childhood, and now in her 60's, she is currently exploring a mixed media approach painting on unique surfaces, such as porcelain, plates, and various objects. In 2012, she moved to San Francisco to continue her work's possibilities in a new environment. She currently works and teaches at the Crucible in Oakland.

About Beth Wilmurt:

Beth Wilmurt is an actor, singer, and director who has performed in over fifty plays, musicals, dance pieces, and cabarets with a variety of companies, including Art Street Theatre, of which she is a founding member, Aurora Theatre Company, Banana Bag & Bodice (New York), Campo Santo, Center Repertory, Crowded Fire, Encore Theatre Company, Erika Shuch Performance Project, EXIT Theatre, Magic Theater, Marin Theatre Company, Potrzebie Dance Project, SF Playhouse, Shotgun Players, Willows Theater, and Word For Word. Her performances in theater and cabaret have garnered numerous awards and award nominations, among them the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, the Shelly Award, the Dean Goodman Award, a Belle Foundation Grant, and the SF Bay Guardian Goldie Award. She has appeared on several Bay Area newspaper "Best Performer of the Year" lists, and was named by San Francisco Magazine one of the top 100 Bay Area artists.

About Asha Sager:

Asha Grace Sager is 10 and a half. She formerly attended Leonard R Flynn Elementary School in San Francisco and will attend Gateway Middle School in the Fall. She loves to dance, sing, act, and write. She also studies violin and gymnastics.

About Emma Jean Brown:

Emma Jean Brown attends Harvey Milk Civvil Rights Academy and is in the 4th grade. She has been doing drama/ theater for three years. Emma Jean performs in the Community Music children's chorus and take private piano lessons.

About Studio 210's Summer Residency:

The Studio 210 Residency was founded in 2012 as a vehicle for artists to hone their skills, experiment, and dive in to making performance, emphasizing the artists' process rather than product. This residency is a unique opportunity for experienced & emerging local artists to work in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District, while receiving professional feedback from award-winning choreographer Deborah Slater. Resident Artists spend two months in intensive rehearsals at Studio 210, working in dialogue with one another and Deborah Slater, culminating in two performances of the works-in-progress and in-depth post-show audience/artist conversation.

This is the 35th Anniversary of Studio 210, a home where hundreds of Bay Artists have flocked to create work. The space itself is brimming with creative energy perfect for the creation and development of new work. Previous Studio 210 Resident Artists have included: Emma Jaster, Erin Malley, Chris Black, Megan Finlay, Rosemary Hannon, and Nol Simonse.

About Deborah Slater Dance Theater:

Created in 1989, DSDT is a professional dance & theater company dedicated to production of evening-length works exploring timely social issues. Founded by Artistic Director/Choreographer Deborah Slater, DSDT has been creating work and touring more than two decades and running Studio 210 in the Mission District for 35 years.

About Deborah Slater:

Deborah Slater, performer, director and choreographer, was awarded the 2015 Della Davidson Prize for her innovations in the field of Dance Theater. She has worked for the Magic Theater, A Traveling Jewish Theater, SOON 3, San Diego Repertory Theater, Theaterworks, Word for Word, and The Pickle Family Circus to name but a few. She is the co-founder of Circuit Network Management, artistic director of Deborah Slater Dance Theater, and founder and artistic director of Art of the Matter Performance Foundation. Art of the Matter is dedicated to the idea that art and everyday life are not separate events, but that Art is the human attempt to find meaning and sense in the chaos of daily experience.

Slater's work has been nominated for multiple Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, winning in 2007 for Hotel of Memories. Selected grants include a Chime Mentorship grant (as Mentor) and a TBA Mentorship with Berkeley Rep's Artistic Director Tony Taccone in 2009, a Chime Across Borders Mentorship with choreographer David Gordon in 2010, a Gerbode Foundation Grant with playwright Julie Hébert and Producer Rob Bailis/ODC Theater for NIGHT FALLS, a Wattis Foundation Grant for MEN THINK THEY ARE BETTER THAN GRASS and a Rainin Fdn Grant for THE 2014 Premiere of PRIVATE LIFE.

Deborah Slater has taught at the California College of Arts, the American College Dance Festival, OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning), the Fromm Institute, San Francisco State, Cal Arts and Stanford. Deborah Slater Dance Theater was chosen for the Pilot Program for CAC Rural and Inner City Presenting, the roster of Young Audiences of Northern California (ongoing), and the Selected National Roster, 'Artists for the Millennium', Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, l999-2000.