NOW 2024: Week Three
about the artists
Bret Easterling
Bret Easterling is a dance artist, educator, and producer based in Los Angeles, California. After receiving his BFA from The Juilliard School, Easterling was a formative member of Gallim Dance and a recognizable contributor to Ohad Naharin’s internationally acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company. Currently, Easterling is on faculty at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and a certified Gaga teacher who stages Ohad Naharin’s works at dance programs and companies around the world. He has built award winning choreographic works for the stage and screen through spaces including The Juilliard School, Jacob’s Pillow, LA Dance Project, b12, and Whim W’Him. As the Founder and Artistic Director of BEMOVING and the Co-Director of Ghost Light Residency, Easterling enjoys providing artists more nurturing spaces to build upon their practices and strives to develop a more supportive ecosystem for dancers in Los Angeles.
Mallory Fabian
Mallory Fabian creates work that thrives on bold, in-the-moment decision-making, which is characterized by its explosive energy, conscious exploration of femininity, subtle humor, and is generationally specific. Her projects seek to evoke genuine, raw emotions onstage by pushing through exhaustion and emotional turmoil in a meditative state. Her recent solo, PLAYLIST, won a Philly Fringie Award in 2023. In addition to her own work, Fabian has performed with RGWW, My Barbarian, Szalt, B. Dunn Movement, among others. She is the Board President for RGWW, Rehearsal Director for Invertigo, and the Artistic Director of FABE (currently on hiatus). Fabian is also focused on producing live events, film, movement directing, and becoming an Intimacy Coordinator.
Kensaku Shinohara
Kensaku Shinohara challenges social hierarchy and systems of exclusion/power through movement and soundscape creation, inviting the disruption of the audience’s comfort. Born in Sapporo, Japan, he discovered dance in 2004 while studying anthropology in Tokyo. After touring as a performer, he moved to the United States in 2009 to further choreographic research. Shinohara’s works have been presented throughout NYC and LA; elsewhere in the United States (San Francisco, Tucson, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh); and internationally in Lisbon, Toronto, Kuala Lumpur, Tainan, and Japan. Shinohara has received support from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Emergency Grant, 92Y Harkness Dance Center AIR, Queens Arts Fund, and the Japan Foundation New York.