outside/inside Sara June, Yuka Takahashi, and Max Lord

OUTSIDE Sara June, Yuka Takahashi, and Max Lord: PINK ISLAND

photos: Nabeela Vega

Sara June
Sara June is a Boston-based dancemaker, performer, and visual artist who has exhibited and performed nationally and internationally since 1991. She approaches performance as an opportunity to explore what is felt and stored within the body as a record of ongoing experience. Since 2006, she has collaborated closely with sound artist Max Lord as half of the performance duo Lord and June on large-scale, site-sensitive, durational performance works often presented in unique locations. Most recently, Lord and June was commissioned by the Boston University Art Galleries to create a work, PEACOCK, for performance alongside the internationally acclaimed Hiroshima Panels by Japanese artists Iri and Toshi Maruki. Her work has been presented by the Boston University Art Galleries, Boston University Dance Theater, Boston Center for the Arts, Mobius, Green Street Studios, Rhode Island College, Rhode Island School of Design, Bridgewater State University, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, REACHFestival at the Wistariahurst Museum, Somerville Artbeat Festival, Berwick Research Institute, the Bumpkin Arts Encampment, the Jonathan Shorr Gallery (NYC), Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY), Le Petit Versailles (NYC), the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (Brooklyn, NY), and Le Lieu Centre for Performance en art actuel (Quebec City), among others. Her performances have been chronicled in several publications including This Moment: Missives from Another World, a photographic history of the Boston performance art scene by Mobius photographer Robert Raymond, and Introduction to Performance Art, an art historical review by the Los Angeles sculptor Robert Fontenot. Her training lineage includes study with butoh masters Katsura Kan, Hiroko Tamano, Natsu Nakajima, Su-En, Diego Pinon, Vangeline, Deborah Butler, and Jennifer Hicks, body weather artist and teacher Zack Fuller, and Boston-based movement improvisers Liz Roncka and Olivier Besson. Sara performed as a member of the butoh troupes Kitsunebutoh (BOS) from 2001-2004, and the Vangeline Theater (NYC) from 2006-2008. Since 2009, she has been a member of the Mobius Artists Group where she offers a weekly butoh methods class to a group of students dedicated to the study of this somatic form. Sara is a 500-hour certified yoga instructor, received
undergraduate training as a visual artist (Rhode Island School of Design) and graduate training in Developmental Psychology (Harvard University), and Clinical Social Work (Boston University).

www.lordandjune.com

Yuka Takahashi
Yuka Takahashi is a dancer, performance artist, improviser, choreographer born in Japan. Her works are strongly engaged in conceptual and experimental practice with movement invention. Her works and collaboration projects were performed around Europe, Japan and the United States in venues such as Siggraph and “100 Years version #4” organized by MoMA PS1 in collaboration with Performa. After she received professional dance training at Joffrey Ballet School, she extended her interest and training in experimental dance and performance in NYC and Europe. In 2006, she moved to Vienna, Austria. There, she received an artist in residence at the experimental performance platform LABfactory for 2 years and at D.ID. Since moving to Boston in 2011, her works were presented at Mobius, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston University, Movement Research (NYC), the Y Theater at YMCA and OBERON and she continued working with local and international artists and dance companies. She produced the experimental performance events 'Living Space' at OBERON (2012), 'Test Kitchen' at Cambridge Y (2014) and curated <3Artrage (2015). In 2014, she was invited to become a member of Boston’s leading experimental artist collective, Mobius.

www. Yukatakahashi.org

Max Lord
Max Lord is a Boston-based improvisor who has worked in a variety of rock, noise, electronic and improv settings. Though originally identifying as a percussionist, since 2000 he has performed with Buchla electronic instruments. His recorded work as Ghost Grass recalls mid-century electronic experimentation as often as more modern improvised approaches. As a collaborator and organizer, he is closely associated with the experimental movement community and has performed with Sara June (as Lord and June) since 2006. From 1995-1997, Max played drums in avant-rock ensemble Bitchhiker, with guitarists Peter Beck and Scott West. From 1998-2000, he collaborated with the well known Boston noise musician Karlheinz as Lord & Karlheinz, terrorizing audiences across the city but leaving few recorded documents. After splitting with Karlheinz he made many powerbook-oriented experiments, working with early versions of Reaktor, max-msp and similar computer music tools. From 2001-2005 he worked out of Wire Sounds, a studio that he built in South Boston and populated with analog synthesizers and antiquated recording equipment. At Wire Sounds he built a large modular synthesizer system, created many tape-based pieces, and recorded various bits and pieces of the Boston rock underground. Some of his work from this time is documented on the CD Electronic Music 2000-2005. After 2006, Max refocused much of his work into contexts not exclusively musical, and began a long, fruitful collaboration with movement artist Sara June. As Lord and June, they work as an improvisational group, on large-scale conceptual projects, and in collaboration with many other members of the experimental movement community. In 2009, he became a member of the Mobius Artists Group, a 37-year old artists' collaborative supporting experimental work in all time-based media. Through Mobius, he has supported performance-based artwork and begun working more with installation-based sound works. He continues to record and perform as Ghost Grass, in which his primary instrument is the Buchla Electric Music Box. In the past few years he has self-released 6 limited-edition tapes Ghost Grass 001-006.

OUTSIDE / INSIDE