"What has become of our bodies?" Tatsumi Hijikata

Ellen Godena is an experimental movement artist, improviser, and performer. Her recent work has focused on the relationships between human, non-human (organic), and machine (non-organic) movement as a method for studying human development. Recent solo and collaborative works have been quests to define these relationships through the use of primitive, robotic entities in performance. This particular research began in 2008 when she and musician-collaborator Max Lord were granted a performance residency at the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR, Brooklyn, NY). Through this residency they created a sound-movement orchestra with simple machines, a marimba lumina, and a body; since, they have worked on projects together that fused sound/body and the most primitive of technologies in performance.

Ellen’s training, artistic influences and inspiration derive from the study of Japanese avant-garde movement and theater forms that have developed since the early 1960’s, primarily the butoh dances created by Japanese artists Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, physical theater, and contemporary dance. Since 1998, she has performed solo, group, and ensemble work in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, and New York City. She was a former dancer with the Boston-based Kitsune Dance Theater (2003-06) under the direction of Deborah Butler, and the NYC post-modern butoh troupe, the Vangeline Theater (2006-08) under the direction of Vangeline. She has performed with Master butoh artist Katsura Kan (Curious Fish, 2002, 2008), and has studied with internationally recognized artists such as Zack Fuller, Hiroko Tamano, Su-En, Diego Pinon, and Katsura Kan. Her primary, long-term training has been with American artists Deborah Butler, Vangeline, and Jennifer Hicks. Currently, Ellen is presenting solo robotics – movement projects in addition to performing regularly with Liz Roncka's Real-Time Performance Project in Boston, MA. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in Studio Painting (1997), a Master's of Education in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University (2005), and is currently at Boston University pursuing a Master's degree in Clinical Social Work.

She is co-founder and co-producer of the Juddertone Performance Series with composers Jane Wang and Juliet Case, and the notorious Zeroplan Experimental Performance Series with Max Lord. She joined the Mobius Artists Group in late 2009.

"And why could my simulated robot handle it? Because it was using the world as its own model. It never referred to an internal description of the world that would quickly get out of date if anything in the real world moved."
-Rodney A. Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us

For more information about recent robotics and movement work, take a videos at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/egodena
and:
http://www.vimeo.com/12141880
For press photos of my work please download from my flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/egodena/
and for writing about my work, please see my blog:
http://www.mobius.org/blog/27