Musicians Todd Barton and Terry Longshore, dancer Suzee Grilley, videographer Michael Maag and digital artist Bruce Bayard present three performances of improvisational sound, movement and light at the Black Swan Theatre in Ashland. Performances are Friday, November 30 at 8pm and Saturday, December 1 at 2pm & 8pm. Tickets are available at Studio A.B, 621 A Street, Ashland. Box office hours are 10am-5pm, Friday through Monday throughout November, and through performance weekend. Tickets also available on-line at www.sonoluminescence.us.

Sonoluminescence is five creative artists improvising together in an experimental environment to explore the boundaries of time, light, sound and space. The experience is created in the moment of each performance, which consists of a variety of segments: duets, trios and full ensemble, within which anything could happen. The evening's playbill is an electronic collage designed by Bruce Bayard.

Todd Barton is the Resident Composer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Director of Composition Studies at Southern Oregon University. Todd and Terry have been performing improvised music at various venues around the United States and Canada for the past seven years. Todd has also provided new compositions for Suzee's choreographies over the past ten years and, like Terry, performed live music with Suzee and her dancers. Todd's main instruments are the Electronic Valve Instrument, an extremely expressive instrument that allows him to control entire soundscapes with his breath, a battery of analog synthesizers and the Japanese bamboo shakuhachi flute.

Terry Longshore is active as a performer, composer, and educator of percussion and has performed internationally and throughout the United States. He performs regularly at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and with ensembles Skin & Bones, Conundrum, Alba Flamenca, T2, and Caballito Negro. Terry has provided music for Suzee Grilley's choreographies both as composer and as composer/performer. Their collaboration Dum Taka Zing Bop was performed in two seasons at SOU and at Britt Festivals as well as a segment on SOPTV's Arts Moment series. He has taught at several universities and currently serves as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at Southern Oregon University. Terry Longshore is a Yamaha Performing Artist and an artist/endorser for Remo Drumheads, Vic Firth Sticks & Mallets, and Zildjian Cymbals.
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Suzee Grilley is widely known in the Rogue Valley as dancer, choreographer and founder of the DanceSpace and the Suzee Grilley Dance Ensemble. She has choreographed for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and performed at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre and with Rogue Opera. Among numerous projects Suzee has shared with Barton, Bayard, Longshore and Maag, was choreographing Barton's Genome music based on human DNA, and the percussion/dance opus Dum Taka Zing Bop! with Longshore. Sonoluminescence takes Suzee back to her roots with the Nikolais DanceTheatre, where performance is always the melding integration of sound, light, image and dance.

Michael Maag has been collaborating with Todd, Terry and Suzee on a variety of creative endeavors for the last six years. Michael is a freelance Visualist and Lighting Designer. He is also the Lighting Department Manager at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Michael improvises and mixes moving multimedia art with luminaires and projection equipment to sculpt space and time with light.

Bruce Bayard is a self-taught visual artist producing ink jet prints of his electronic collages. He is currently in the process of completing a 1000-image series called "The Weekly Press," and has also produced an audio electronic collage for Suzee's choreography Drawn Onward.

These creative artists continually open themselves to new worlds of sight, sound and movement. Improvisational performance requires and creates a heightened state of immediacy from performers and audience alike.

When: Friday, November 30, 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, December 1, 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Where: Black Swan Theatre (corner of Pioneer and E. Main, Ashland)
Tickets: $12.50 advance, $15 at the door
More Info: Bruce Bayard 482-2253 www.sonoluminescence.us