MIAMI PERFORMANCE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL '21 ARTISTS
ARANTXA ARAUJO
Mexican artist with a background in neuroscience. Her work is essentially multidisciplinary, feminist, meditative and rooted in bio-behavioral research and technology. Explorations of gender constructions, performativity and identity, and the politics of migration are seen and experienced in her installations, which include new media, video, sound, photography, mapping, light, and performance.
CHARO OQUET
Dominican born Charo Oquet has lived and worked with communities nationally and internationally and as an art producer, has produced an extensive body of work. Oquet’s artwork and videos addressing issues of the displacement, identity, migration, gender, or sociopolitical and cultural issues are documents of times and places, reflects on issues of de-colonial aesthesis and the role of contemporary culture in a global reality. Her work is a subjective observation by someone who is concerned with her surroundings and the culture she left behind.
CINTHYA ESCORCIA
Visual artist born in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1992, is also her place of residence. Her first approach to art began in her adolescence when she began to photograph her daily life, which led her to record her first videos about intimate rituals of her daily life from her webcam. Cinthya's artistic interests deepened when she studied Plastic Arts, finding in objects, photography and video performance a way of communicating from her introverted personality and talking about issues related to loneliness, the body and the daily life of the human being.
TOMÁS PICHARDO ESPAILLAT
Dominican filmmaker. He works mainly in animation, film and illustration. He received a two-year full fellowship at Fabrica, Benetton's design research center, in Treviso, Italy, in 2013, during this time his work appeared in Salone di Mobile (Milan), Adforum, Vimeo staff pick, and Vice Colombia. Tomás received his BFA in animation at Parsons, The New School of Design in 2010. And his Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Altos de Chavón, in 2008. A graduate of the Pictoplasma academy in Berlin, Pichardo's work has touches of magical realism. Evoking the colorful, surreal and sometimes disorienting experience of growing up in the Caribbean.
GERALDINE RIVERA
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (1992). Multidisciplinary artist, director and fictional character. Geraldine studied visual communication at Long Island (Farmingdale State College), and then worked in NYC as graphic designer in a fashion and beauty studio for 2 years. She moved back to Santo Domingo in 2017, where she has focused on working on projects of audiovisual nature. Recently (together with her partner Fidel López) they won the Public’s Award at the 2021 Image Center Biennial. She is currently a freelance creative director, and teaches storytelling and creativity at Chavón the School of Design.
THREE BRAINED ROBOT
Since 2008 The Three-Brained Robot has brought performance art, puppets and music to stages all over North America and Europe. Each performance consists of a variety show of music, skits, and performances that parody society as we know it.
GUSTAVO SOLAR
Bachelor of Arts, mention in Plastic Arts from the University of Chile (Santiago). He has performed and exhibited his works at the meetings: Zona de Arte Acción in Buenos Aires, Argentina; EPI “Independent performance meeting” Lota and the Posta Sur meeting, in Puerto Montt, Chile. He is the organizer and manager of the meeting of performance and new paradigms Fractal Scene and Aut, "Temporal Autonomous Activation".
MALE MODEL
Noise performer and visual artist from Miami.
JENNA BALFE
Jenna Balfe is an artist/musician and activist from Miami. She is the lead singer of the group Donzii. Balfe graduated from the University of Massachusetts in Sustainability Studies and Dance in 2011. In 2017 Balfe received a Master of Science from Pratt University in Dance Movement Therapy. Through her studies, Balfe uses a scientific and emotional perspective to approach the human relationship to self, each other, and nature. In her recent and unfolding fantastical performative narrative "Transnaturism" she questions the idea of human belonging and agency in relation to the existential value of the natural world.
ROMA VAQUERO DIAZ
Argentine multidisciplinary artist, performer and researcher. Her projects include performance, installation, photography and audiovisual. Master in Combined Artistic Languages (U.N.A.) and Bachelor of Scenic Art (U.N.R.). She has participated in exhibitions in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, the United States, Spain, Belgium and India.
KC TOIMIL
Born in Miami in 1987 from Cuban parents, Kassandra Toimil (she/they), has been creating art and music since grade school. They have recorded more than 10 albums by their mid-twenties, from DIY 4-track recordings in a Law office after hours, to high end studios occupying excommunicated churches in Hudson Valley NY. This experience brought them to begin experimenting with DIY electronics which has been a part of their installation work since 2014. They have been able to show their work at Edge Zone Gallery / “Resting Behaviour” / Mia, FL 2020; Space Mountain Miami, first solo show / “A Murder” / Mia, FL 2019; Mana 777 / Drone Fest / 2018, Space Mountain Miami / “Wires in Transition” / 2017 and more. Engaging the architecture of class systems, their work deals heavily with social class and how technology is shaping society.
SEIKO KITAYAMA
Seiko Kitayama was born in 1982 and studied painting at Tokyo Zokei University and Musashino Art University. She started Performance Art in 2008 and participated in festivals and residency programs in India, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Mexico, America, China, Singapore, Philippines, Serbia, Czech and UK. When she performed together with audiences, she got interested in building interactive relationships and compassion between artist and audiences. The theme of her work was about suppression of society and resiliency between you and me.
EL FUGUE
El Fugue, a classically trained Russian multi-instrumentalist turning his current focus to the world of analog synthesis. Various twists and turns take you down dark alley ways into foreign zones, presenting hypnotic patterns with a synthetic profusion of growth and chaos. El Fugue creates music for dystopian dance floors but also fit for cybernetic meditation.
PIP BRANT
She has degrees from the University of Montana (BFA) and the University of Wyoming. (MFA). Brant grew up on the western Plains Indian reservations (Sioux, Cheyenne, Assiniboine) where the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Public Health employed her family. She has taught, herded goats and produced art in Montana, Wyoming, London, England, and Missouri and in 1999 moved to Florida to take a studio teaching position at Florida International University. She has exhibited in Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, and London as well as nationally, including venues in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, as well as the western states. Recently she has been exhibiting in the Basel Art Fair affiliated Ping Pong exhibitions that feature artists from Switzerland /LA/Miami.
ELIU ALMONTE
1970 born in San Francisco, Dominican Republic. Lives and works in Malaga, España and San Diego, California, USA; as an interdisciplinary artist. He started his artistic investigations in 1979 in the painting school of the Puerto Plata master teacher Carlos de Mena. He continued in the Regional School of Fine Art of San Francisco de Macorís in 1984. His investigations spans sculpture, installation, video, performance, photography, drawing and painting.
NICOLE COMBEAU
Nicole Combeau is a photographer, trauma-informed expressive art educator, and paper artist living and working in Miami, Florida.
WALDO BAEZ
Dominican illustrator and audiovisual artist, native of Santo Domingo, Dom Rep. (September 23, 2000). Former student of Chavón, School of Design in the Visual Communication career with a focus on Illustration (2018-2020) and currently pursuing an Illustration career at Parsons, The New School.
MARCO GUGLIELMI REIMMORTAL
Marco is a visual artist, sound designer, and performer who gained notoriety for his large conceptual installations showing a harmonious vision of vibrant sonic bodies. His main source of inspiration is sound, which is completely integrated with vision. His lifelong research is based on the connections between visual and sonic perception based on emotions, a non-verbal language that is –above all – an energetic exchange. Marco started working in digital/analogue editing and recording in the middle of the 80’s, being a pioneer in Italy.
DEAD HANDS
Experimental A/V project formed with noise, modular synths and sound on sound rhythms. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, José Martí is the creative mind behind it all. Known in the local scene for its thunderous solo performances and live looping sessions, DEAD HANDS incorporates the video glitch aesthetics with techniques such as video synthesis & timelapse video. Past publications: Noise of The Living Dead (alternative soundtrack for Romero's Night of The Living Dead), SERES (self published 50min A/V album) & All the Noise Inside (2009 debut bedroom album).
RAFAEL VARGAS BERNARD
Born 1979 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, Rafael Vargas-Bernard is an interdisciplinary visual artist, noise musician, and performer with digital art and new media tendencies. Vargas Bernard studied computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, sculpture at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico, and La Práctica at Beta-Local (San Juan, PR). His work explores functional and non-functional systems (including power structures, economic systems, and generative systems) and society’s relationship with these. He creates pieces and experiences that are often interactive and require some participation with the intention of provoking dialogue and action. He employs readily accessible materials and technologies, found objects, and a painterly yet utilitarian aesthetic. Vargas-Bernard combines performance, sound, programming, sculpture, painting, humor, and digital media in his creative practice.
AGUA DULCE
Agua is a queer latine healer and artist based out of Miami. They hold degrees in psychology and art history, and their practice has been informed through self-taught and self-explorative methods. They reject the hierarchy of institutional “fine art” and prefer to utilize organic (fruits, plants, water), mundane, and easily accessible materials for their creations; thus, elevating the experiences of the everyday person and furthering the embodiment of magical realism. They perform sound healing for those needing reconnection with their soul and create intentional body adornments (as jewelry or tattoos) to remind folx of their strength in transforming their realities and ability to influence their futures in alignment with their needs.
JESSICA F HIRST
Multidisciplinary artist, working mainly in performance, video, installation and 3D collage. She has been a refugee from the toxic habitat of the United States since 2006, having lived in Nicaragua, Spain and the Dominican Republic.
JULIO ROLOFF
Cuban-American composer of electro-acoustic, computer and experimental music, professor and producer. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1951, and is naturalized American Citizen, he started his musical education at the Conservatory Amadeo Roldan in his native city where he studied double-bass with professors Orestes Urfe and Angel Nenov, percussion with professors Domingo Aragu and Roberto Concepcion and music theory with professors Nereida Borges, Zoila Gomez, Aida Teseiro, Nidia Fournier and Carmen Valdes Sicardo.
TWO COIN
Noise performers from Miami.
GLASGOW IMPROVISERS ORCHESTRA
GIO is a large improvising ensemble of around 20 musicians from diverse artistic backgrounds. They perform across the UK and Europe, host an annual festival of improvisation and run regular events.
GETAN
Project of dominican artist Gabriel Santos, a young unknown producer on the scene who began with only 14 years in 2014, in the art of combining elements, playing with them and getting along with the synthesizer and the drum machine.
BETHANY DINSICK
Multimedia artist, self-taught musician, and performer currently based in Brooklyn. She performs vocal driven electronic music under the moniker ‘Sick Din’ and creates her own psychedelic music videos. She has been performing solo and collaboratively for over 15 years, has self-released 6 albums, and 12 music videos.
HUMAN FLUID ROT
HUMANFLUIDROT (Robert Wilson Brantley) is an experiment in otology and neurological stimuli focusing on the use of sound wave manipulation, volume and layering.
POCKET OF LOLLIPOPS
"This husband-and-wife tag team (writer-slash-filmmaker Tony Kapel on drums and visual artist Maite Urrechaga on guitar) is an adorably angst-y indie rock kinda thing. Just imagine if pre-divorce Kim and Thurston of Sonic Youth took a couple's retreat to Japan, got real deep into Tokyo cat cafe culture, and decided to record a concept album in the hotel bathroom."
- Sean Pajot, Miami New Times
LEE CAMPBELL
Trained in Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2005 and received his doctorate in 2016. His recent experimental performance poetry films have been selected for many international queer film festivals including Queerbee LGBT Film Festival, The Gilbert Baker Film Festival and Kansas 2020. He has a solo exhibition of his film work at The Sidewalk Video Gallery, Fountain Street, Boston USA in late 2021.
RAT BASTARD
Noise Pioneer, founder of the International Noise Conference. Airlift Project: The Music Box: A Shantytown Sound Laboratory.
ANALÍA BELTRÁN I JANÉS
Analía Beltrán i Janés has a degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid. Since 2001 she has focused his artistic activity on Performance Art. She has participated in numerous national and international festivals such as Acción! MAD in Madrid 2008 and 2014, X Biennial of Havana 2009 (Cuba), Infr’action Séte (France) 2009, Inf’action Venice 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017 (Biennial of Venice), Guangzhou Live 3 (China) 2012, Live Action 8 Gothenburg (Sweden) 2013, Navinki International Performance Festival, Minsk (Belarus) 2013, La Muga Caula 2016 (Catalonia), Reihe Neu-Oerlikon (Switzerland) 2017, Perfomedia Bergamo (Italy) 2018 between others. She lives in Madrid where she develops a large part of her work in different spaces and galleries such as the Reina Sofia Museum, Matadero Madrid, Room Art Fair, etc. Since January 2018, she organizes every month in Madrid “P.E.P.A.” (Small Performance Art Event). She is also a founder member of PACK, a Chinese – Spanish performance group.
MORIR SOÑANDO
Gregorio Alvarez Is an editor, director, and camera operator. Originally from the Dominican Republic and now based out of Miami, Florida. Gregorio’s passion for storytelling and the visual arts started early with frequent trips to the movie theater with his grandfather and brother. This early exposure to the moving image awoke a sense of creative wonder and lighthearted playfulness. As a child, Gregorio quickly started creating mini-movies with a VH camera.
MARILI PIZARRO
Marili Pizarro (Bayamón, P.R. 1987) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Puerto Rico. The focus of her work and practice blends narrative with choreography, site- specificity and digital media. In 2014, Pizarro started the educational project-platform Taller Específico which focuses on providing emerging and aspiring self-formed artists like herself with theoretical and critical analysis tools through multidisciplinary thematic workshops like La dualidad de las sirenas (The duality of mermaids) and Domesticidad y desafío (Domesticity and defiance). Pizarro has been dancer, soloist, scenographer and choreographer for Contemporary dance company Hincapié by Petra Bravo, resident improviser for the PISO Proyecto platform set in the redefinition of public space by artist Noemí Segarra (2011-2013) and currently with collective La trinchera alongside Beatriz Irizarry and Cristina Lugo.
JOSÉ HERNÁNDEZ SANCHÉZ
José attained a BFA in music composition at CalArts mentored by Barry Schraeder and James Tenney among others. He later earned his MFA in music composition at SDSU and attended workshops with Pierre Boulez, Tristan Murail, Vinko Globokar and Toshio Hosokawa. He worked as professor and coordinator of the department of composition at Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia from 2004 to 2010. He is presently based in Miami, composing music and independently researching aesthetics.
CUMSCUM
Noise performer from Miami.