Performing artists from Austria and Philadelphia collaborate and perform during weeklong residency.

Soundfield and paraphrase/NEXUS are pleased to announce “Philadelphia Bridge, Part 1,” an evening of improvised and choreographed works by movement artists Mariella Greil and Emily Sweeney with sound artists Werner Moebius and Bilwa and composer Michael McDermott performing works inspired by the exhibition “Toyland” at NEXUS.

Mariella Greil hails from Austria and currently teaches in the United Kingdom. She will join her frequent collaborator Werner Moebius, also from Austria, in a series of movement and sound pieces created collaboratively with Emily Sweeney and her performance partner Bilwa.

Emily and Bilwa are hosting the Europeans over the course of a week spent working in their studio space in Kensington. The pan-Atlantic collaboration began when composer and Soundfield Director Gene Coleman encountered the Austrian duo while performing in the UK and arranged for them to travel to Philadelphia to work with Emily and Bilwa because he felt their aesthetic approaches and interests would mingle well. The paraphrase/NEXUS performance on October 22 provides an opportunity for the two sets of collaborators to share the work they’ve developed as a quartet during their co-residency.

On the same evening, composer Michael McDermott will premiere tomas, a flute quartet performed by Danielle Brosious, Jacqueline Howell, Heather Fortune, and Bob Carpency.

“Toyland” showcases the photography of six artists working with simple, whimsical toy cameras, featuring work by Mark Sink, Rita Bernstein, Chris Macan, Diana Bloomfield, Mira Gohel and Andy Benson. Curated by NEXUS member Chris Macan.

Paraphrase/NEXUS is a monthly performance series in which artists of various disciplines and media outside the visual arts realm create single evening performances that respond and relate to current NEXUS exhibitions. This programming offers a new context for the public to engage meaningfully with emerging and experimental artists and promotes further understanding to the meanings and methods behind exhibitions at NEXUS. Paraphrase/NEXUS is produced by Perpetual Movement and Sound.

Artist bios:

Mariella Greil lives and works in Vienna/ A and Chester/ UK: performances, tableau vivantes, installations and collaborations with artists of differing media. Currently lecturing at the Department of
Performing Arts, Faculty of Arts and Media at the University of Chester/ UK. She is in the board of directors for the festival moves: movement on screen in Manchester and an active member of the steering
group for the SoundNetwork (UK) and the Center for Practice as Research. Physical precision and clarity, consequence and proximity to conceptual art are significant for her performances. “For my work was
or is it important to use differing expression languages, picture languages, meaning languages to sensitize new interrelations, to consider the fractures of images as transformations, but mainly to open up the borderlands of actual and potential, artistic and artless reality. The idea of the polyphonic, intermedia expanding process is essential for my artistic notion.”

Werner Moebius is based in Vienna and London but has been building an international reputation over the last three years via a series of residencies in Chicago, Liverpool and Mexico City. His work encompasses sound installations, solo performance, ensemble compositions and video.

Emily Sweeney is a movement artist living in Philadelphia, where she co-directs Perpetual Movement and Sound. She has presented her own improvised and choreographed works around Philadelphia as part of
paraphrase/NEXUS, bowerbird performance series, Soundfield Festival, CEC New Edge Mix, and Philly Fringe. She dances with the Emergent Improvisation Ensemble and independent choreographer Brigitta
Herrmann. Emily studied dance, literature, and anthropology at Smith and Bennington Colleges under the auspices of Dana Reitz, Susan Sgorbati, Nia Love, Eva Karzcag, Edward Hoagland, and Terry Creach.
She is a native of Vermont, where she has taught dance technique and improvisation at the Southeastern Vermont Career Education Center, Marlboro College, and the Brattleboro School of Dance, where she has
twice been commissioned to create group pieces for student and community dancers. She has performed at such venues as the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and the White Wave Dance
Festival, and has participated in Nancy Stark Smith’s January intensive. In her own work she explores systems found in nature, as well as how humans’ sensory experience and memory shape our
perceptions. She is driven to investigate how humans adjust our physical and sensory interactions to accommodate new technology and the pace of urban environments.

Bilwa is a Philadelphia-based musician, curator, producer, and visual artist. He co-directs the performance collective Perpetual Movement and Sound. Bilwa is also a member and assistant director of
NEXUS/foundation for today’s art, where he curates the performance series paraphrase/NEXUS. Past projects include Hoopty Heaven, an ambient dub duo, and VERSIONsound, a roots/reggae/dub sound system. In 2007, Bilwa and Mikronesia released perfect seconds, a compilation of their music created inspired by the dancers of Perpetual Movement and Sound, on earSnake records.

Michael McDermott (a.k.a. Mikronesia) is a producer, composer, musician and sound artist. His main project, Gemini Wolf, is an electronic rock band for which he plays keyboards and laptop and arranges. Mike is an original member of Perpetual Movement and Sound. Mikronesia has released two albums with ambient label Gears of Sand. Tissue Paper Ghosts (2006) is an ethereal glitch album about the psychic remains of a car crash, and Iris Or Comfortable Too (2007) is a work that features minimalist piano and warm electronics. In early 2008, he released vxvii on Kikapu. In April 2008, he premiered his
first work for string trio, Daemon En Gauze, as part of the paraphrase/NEXUS performance series. Visit www.mikronesia.com to listen to his work.

This program is made possible in part through the generous support of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture, Sound Field NFP, NEXUS Foundation for Today’s Art and grants from the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, with additional media support from Bowerbird.