Photo by Steven Miller
Seattle based Degenerate Art Ensemble, led by Haruko Crow Nishimura and Joshua Kohl, makes performances inspired by punk, comics, cinema, nightmares, and fairytales driven by live music and their own style of physical theater and butoh-inspired dance. They combine projected imagery with the movement and sound to create new mythologies, revealing other dimensions, and challenging reality in a multi-dimensional storytelling experience. Degenerate Art Ensemble has shown their work throughout North America and Europe known for their large-scale dance and theater projects, concerts, and site-transforming experiences. In this unique collaboration, Degenerate Art Ensemble’s artists, designers, and technicians join the Juni One Set collaboration for the creation of Boy mother / faceless bloom.
Photo by Bruce Clayton Tom
Haruko Crow Nishimura (she/her) is a dancer, vocalist and artistic director of Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE). She is always searching to discover how art can create deeper connections and awakenings. Her unique style of movement is inspired by her practices of physical theater and butoh dance. She excavates the dark corners of humanity, inventing new mythologies and reimagining fairy tales, telling stories that strive to reveal hidden beauty, confront demons, and ultimately find healing. She is a recipient of Arts Innovators Award from Artist Trust, a Creative Capital award, is a Guggenheim fellow, received a commission with her group DAE from director Robert Wilson to re-interpret his work Einstein on the Beach (NY), created a solo dance for legendary dancer Anna Halprin’s 95 Rituals (SF), and a large scale site specific collaboration with Olson Kundig Architects (Seattle). She has performed her dance work throughout North America and Europe. Her newest work Skeleton Flower premiered at the Spotlight USA dance festival in Bulgaria presented by American Dance Abroad, appeared in the 2021 International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Mexico City and the HCA Festival in Denmark in 2022. Skeleton Flower will be shown in San Francisco in 2024.
Photo by Bruce Clayton Tom
Joshua Kohl (he/him) is a composer, musician and sound designer and co-directs Degenerate Art Ensemble. His 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 - with a goal of reaching the hearts and souls of the listener through vibrational resonance. He was the recipient of Creative Capital, Artist Trust Innovators Award, MAP Fund, NEA and Music Theatre Now awards. His work for string quartet and choir was performed by the Kronos Quartet at their 40th anniversary concert in Seattle and at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. In addition to his work with Degenerate Art Ensemble he is also a passionate conductor of the music of his peers including a Lincoln center concert of the work of composer Jherek Bischoff with singer David Byrne. He is deeply honored to work with this exceptional team of collaborators.
