paige starling sorvillo

is a physical performer and creator of live environments. she is playing in the passionate unnamable and devising work that is visceral, immediate and inevitable for both performer(s) and audience. her work is a practice in the electric resonance of being. breath, blood, pulse. brightness of bones, frantic whispers on skin. her work is darkness. joy. risk.

deeply influenced by Minako Seki, SU-EN & Shinichi MOMO Koga in Japanese Butoh Dance and Ruth Zaporah & Cassie Terman in Zaporah’s Action Theater, other teachers include Akira Kasai, Yumiko Yoshioka, Katsura Kan, Diego Piñon, Yukio Waguri, Hiroko Tamano, Denise Fujiwara, Yuko Kaseki in Butoh; Jess Curtis, Katie Duck, KT Nelson, Keith Hennessy, Shannon McMurchy in contemporary dance/performance; and the SITI company & Leigh Evans in Suzuki Theater Method. significant earlier influences are Peter DiMuro in dance and Craig Quintero in experimental theater.

paige's recent work includes Third Skin, an evening-length solo performance and video installation (Noh Space, SF, 2003); Just Past Johnson’s Farm, excerpts for a butoh western with Kinji Hayashi (various SF/Oakland venues, 2003/4); and research performances for wander.kill.die. (DanceMission, the Milk Bar, Temescal Arts and other SF/Oakland venues, 2005). she has been a performer and/or primary collaborator with Yuko Kaseki (AMMOnite improvisation: Club der Polnischen Versager, Berlin, Germany, 2004); Jess Curtis/Gravity (Touched: DanceMission, SF, 2004); Allen Willner & Tanya Calamoneri/SO.GO.NO. (Addendum to a Day (work in progress): The Culture Project, NY, 2004); Tanya Calamoneri/inkBoat (A Bottomless Pit: New College Theater/EPI, SF, 2003); Degenerate Art Ensemble (Nymph: On the Boards, Seattle, 2002); Shinichi MOMO Koga & Sten Rudstrom/inkBoat (Cockroach: Schloss Broellin, Tanz Fabrik-Potsdam & Pfefferberg, Germany & Theater Artaud, SF, 2001); and Eric Koziol (short film - The Duchess: festivals including Dance on Camera 2003, Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, NY). from 1991-7, she presented work in Boston at Tufts University, Cambridge's Dance Complex, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, & the American College Dance Festival; and danced/performed with Peter DiMuro and Craig Quintero at Mobius, The Emerson Theater/Dance Umbrella, & Tufts' Balch Arena Theater.

she is founder/curator of Butoh Oakland (bringing training & performance in Butoh and related forms to the San Francisco Bay area); co-director of Oakland’s Temescal Arts; and founder/producer of Oakland’s Live Art Evolution festival. she teaches Butoh classes and intensives regularly at Temescal Arts and has been a guest artist at New College’s Experimental Performance Institute and at University of San Francisco. in addition, she maintains a private practice in rehabilitative Pilates.

paige’s work has been funded by The Zellerbach Family Foundation and Meet the Composer.

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