Artists

Lara Miller brings her interests in sculpture and movement to each and every piece she creates, whether for her namesake clothing line or for the costumes she's created for The Seldoms. Always curious about how geometry drapes and pulls once on a moving form, Lara's costume work and ready to wear pieces inform one another to create something vastly different from what is typically seen in both arenas.

Ms. Miller graduated from the School of the Art Institute. During her senior year, she began her clothing line as well as started costuming for The Seldoms and Lucky Plush. Since then her line has grown to be sold in 17 stores across the US while at the same time has costumed for other local dance companies such as Mad Shak, Same Planet Different World, and Mordine and Co. Her work has been recognized in various publications including the New York Times, Lucky Magazine, WWD, CS Magazine, the Tribune and the Sun Times. Recently named "Best Indie Designer" in Chicago's "Best of" Issue, Lara has played an important role in helping to organize the Fashion Focus Chicago events with the city. For more information about Lara and her work, please log onto www.laramiller.net.

Abigail Glaum-Lathbury's design is an investigation of beauty, coaxed from the unlikely. Her work invokes the other worldly through an ongoing exploration of surface and texture. Both performance costume and clothing design provide Abigail a means to express these interests through the body in movement and the living form.

Ms. Glaum-Lathbury graduated from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In addition to creating costumes for The Seldoms, she designs a eponymous ready to wear collection featuring silhouettes ranging from the bizarre to the beautiful. Her work has been recognized by Lucky, Venus, and Mule Magazines, as well as by Time Out Chicago and the Chicago Reader.

Richard has composed more than 20 scores for dance as well as numerous works for theater. He is the recipient of the Ruth Page Award for "Outstanding Collaborative Artist", the Helen Hayes Award for "Outstanding Sound Design" and several Joseph Jefferson and Drama Desk Award nominations for both music and sound design. His current work focuses on sampling traditional instruments (often while they are stressed) and re-presenting them in acousmatic compositions within immersive listening environments. Richard is also Professor of Dance and Associate Chair of the Dance Department of Columbia College Chicago.

Jackie Kazarian is a Chicago painter, video and installation artist whose intense colors and complex surfaces explore utopian impulses in the face of emotional and physical upheaval. Her visually challenging and kinetic landscapes integrate different languages of painting and drawing with screen-printing, stamping, flocking and collage. Ms. Kazarian's work has been exhibited in Chicago, New York, Miami, California, Armenia and Japan.

Ms. Kazarian has been a frequent instructor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and created public works for The U.S. Embassy and the City of Chicago. She received her graduate degree in painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1989 and bachelor's of science degree from Duke University in 1981. Her work can be viewed at www.jackiekazarian.net.

Liz Burritt is an original member of the Joe Goode Performance Group established in 1986. She has been an instrumental collaborator in the making of over 30 original works, and has been featured in many pieces including The Ascension of Big Linda into the Skies of Montana, Disaster Series, Take Place, Maverick Strain, Deeply There, What the Body Knows and Stay Together. In 2000 she was awarded an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Individual Performance.

In addition to creating and performing with the Company, Ms. Burritt teaches technique, voice, partnering and performance workshops for dancers and actors around the country. She has taught in many Colleges and Universities, including University of California at Berkeley, Mills College, University of California at Davis, Howard University, University of Maryland at College Park and Northeastern University in Boston. She is currently teaching at Columbia College in Chicago.

She is expanding her work to include classes for actors and theatre companies, such as Fools' Fury Theater Company and The Shotgun Players in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ms. Burritt has also worked assisting Joe in developing and setting new work on other companies including Dance Alloy in Pittsburgh, PA and Zenon in Minneapolis MN. She most recently assisted in the direction of the opera "Transformations" (libretto by Anne Sexton and score by Conrad Susa) for the Merola Program at the San Francisco Opera.

Ms. Burritt has a growing interest in video and film and has appeared in a number of short films and one feature length film for which she earned SAG eligibility.

Vertu / Architecture, Design + Fabrication is located on Goose Island, an industrial area of Chicago, where it maintains its office and workshop. The firm is well positioned to expand on the city's rich architectural and manufacturing heritage to develop contemporary solutions for unique projects.

Joel Huffman leads Vertu with experience in national and international projects. He has participated on design juries and symposia at several universities as well as at the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture & Design. Award winning work, including urban design, architecture, interior design and furniture, has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including the Sao Paulo Bienal in 1998. In 2004 Mr. Huffman was nominated for the Dubin Family Young Architect Award recognizing exceptional work by Chicago architects under the age of forty.

Currently Mr. Huffman is on the board of directors of the not-for-profit M5 Artist Collective, a group that comments on contemporary issues through multi-disciplinary installation based events. Prior to founding Vertu in 1993, Mr. Huffman gained a valuable range of architectural experience in New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Chicago.

Website: www.vertuinc.com

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a uniquely structured chamber music ensemble comprised of 30 dynamic and versatile young performers who are dedicated to advancing the music of our time. Through innovative programming, inter-disciplinary collaborations, commissions by young composers, and performances in nontraditional venues, ICE brings together new music and new audiences.

ICE was founded in 2001 in Chicago, and has rapidly established itself as one of the leading new-music ensembles of its generation, winning first prize in the 2005 CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, and performing over sixty concerts a year in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia. ICE has performed more than 300 world premieres to date, and has performed the work of young composers from 17 different countries. The ensemble will release albums on the Naxos, Bridge and Focus Records labels in 2007.