TBX [ hacking tech ] Edition
New York City based inter-disciplinary visual artist Jason Akira Somma is an internationally lauded heretic in the world of art, renowned for “defying categorization” (Rolex Arts Initiative) and recognized as “a visual art anomaly who has done some pretty revolutionary things in the
space of performance and technology,” (The Creators Project, Intel, Vice). Somma’s work explores the merging of engineering new technology, science, performance, and kinesthetic into new, autonomous media. He refers to this fusion of cross-disciplines as “Aesthetic Singularity.”
CLASSES:
Technique through Improvisation, Dance and Technology, Choreography Lab, and Artistic Development and Mentorship
SCHEDULE:
T | 9/26-28 | 6-8pm
W | 9/25 | 6-8pm *special guests Abraham.In.Motion!
TH | 9/26-28 | 6-8pm
FRI | 9/29 | 5-7pm
FRI | 9/29 | 8pm *Abraham.In.Motion at Texas Performing Arts Center
SAT/SUN | 9/30 & 10/1 | 12-4pm
LOCATION:
UT Rec Sports off San Jacinto & E20th in studio 1.104a
BIO:
Somma’s work has been featured in The Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, MoMA, Deitch Project (SoHo), Location 1 Gallery (SoHo), Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, CCA (Center of Contemporary Art, Glasgow), Aichi Triennale (Japan), Museum de Lakenhal (Netherlands), Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA), Anderson Gallery (Richmond, VA), The New York Times, LA Times, Vogue Italia, V magazine, Interview magazine, Dazed & Confused magazine, Complex magazine, SPEX magazine (Germany), The Village Voice, Time Out NY, Sundance Channel, Independent Film Channel, PBS, NY Dance Film Festival, MTV Europe, American Dance Festival, Seoul (Korea) Film Festival, Cinedans Festival (Amsterdam), and the Performatica Festival (Mexico).
Jason Akira Somma is the first American to receive the Rolex Arts Initiative for Dance in 2008, and has been working under the mentorship of Jiri Kylian and has continued to collaborate with Kylian on several projects to date.
Jason’s solo gallery show entitled “Phosphene Variations” premiered at the Location 1 gallery (SoHo) in 2013, and featured the very first free-floating-interactive-holograph-film installation. Spectators were invited to use the motion of their hands to control the image of floating holographs of such legendary artists as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Robert Wilson, and Carmen DeLavallade among others.
Somma has been commissioned by the Lyon Opera Ballet as well as the BBC Bigscreens Moves Festival. He was a guest artist at the Center of Contemporary Art (CCA) in Glasgow and was a featured artist at the Robert Wilson Watermill Foundation. Somma collaborated with Robert Wilson, choreographing and directing five short films shown at the Guggenheim Museum. His live dance performance “Frances Wessells, a Portrait of 91 Years” premiered at the Saddler Wells Theatre in London and the National Chaillot Theater of Paris.
Jason has been a technological consultant for a variety of institutions and esteemed artists including Marina Abramovic, Walt Disney’s Imagineers, Namesake and multibrand retailer ØDD., and the University of Glasgow in the Neuroscience department for a research study focusing on how the perception of movement affects the brain.