CHANNEL Z was a collaborative group that initially formed out of a series of dance sessions organized by Robin Feld for people who were teaching Contact Improvisation in New York City. Members of Channel Z intermingled during the mid to late seventies in various configurations, sharing a common interest in improvisation.
A basic spirit of “dancing together” plus a renegade fascination with alternate ways of perceiving time, space, and the meaning of movement strongly colored all of Channel Z’s creative endeavors. These two traits were a natural carry over from their shared history of years of dancing Contact Improvisation together and with others.. Their work was also influenced by their experiences dancing with Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Meredith Monk, and Steve Paxton.
Beginning in 1982, Channel-Z, investigated the spontaneous, focused, and deeply physical movement states occurring in Contact Improvisation and developed the compositional potential of this approach to address all aspects of theater. The result was full length ensemble performance work combining highly designed material and wildly spontaneous mixed media improvisations.
Channel Z projects also included:
- Film
- Video
- Vocal Work
- Self Promotional Advertisements
- Discount Tickets Prices @ .99 cents
- Rehearsal Retreats in: The Town Hall, Putney Vermont; A children’s Ballet Dance School in Long Island; An abandoned building in Soho
- Live simultaneous play by play reporting of a performance event that was not happening
- A Summer Workshop with no students.
Channel-Z's last show was in 1987 at Danspace. They also reunited to perform in Danspaces’ Silver Series in 1999.
Paul Langland is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher who for the last 35 years has been an innovator of dance and performance. He has preserved and developed the legacy of American dancer Allan Wayne (1907-1978) through an on-going system of teachings and performances, known as Allan Wayne Work. Mr. Langland has performed in innumerable venues on four continents and has taught thousands of students. In New York, The Dancspace Project, P.S. 122, Dance Theatre Workshop, The Kitchen, The Franklin Furnace and many other venues have presented Mr. Langland's dances. Paul’s work has received financial support from NYSCA, New York State Decentralization Grants, the Jerome Foundation through the Danspace Project, and the Robinson Foundation. Paul has been a contact improviser since its discovery in 1972 and was a member of the groundbreaking improvisation ensemble, Channel Z (1982-1990). Paul was an original member of The Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble (1974-1985), performing again with the Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, NY (2005). In 1998, Mr. Langland was a Bagnolet International Dance Festival semi-finalist. He will be performing with Ping Chong at LaMama Theater at the end of May, and on tour in Amsterdam this summer. Paul is an Associate Arts Professor at New York University's Experimental Theater Wing.
Daniel Lepkoff's work considers "all" of our movement as a finely tuned physical dialogue with the environment and explores the form and composition of this interaction.
Through the 70’s and 80’s he played a central role in the development of Release Technique with Mary Fulkerson as well as Contact Improvisation with Steve Paxton.
He is one of the founders of Movement Research in NYC. He has taught and performed his work at in dance centers and schools worldwide.
He was a member of Channel Z since it’s inception in 1982.
He has collaborated with many other artists and performers including: Lisa Nelson, Steve Paxton; Paul Langland, Saira Blanche Theater in Moscow (Oleg Soulimenko and Andrej Andrianov), and Japanese dancer, Sakura Shimada, among others.
He has published numerous articles articulating concepts that are central to his own work, these writings appear in CQ, The MR Performance Journal, and Contredanse Publications in Bruxelles.
He is known for his commitment to constructing dance performance from the process of living movement, and for developing a technique based on this approach that is both a dance training and body of research and knowledge about how to move and live in the world.
He has an on ongoing interest in house building, mathematics, photography, singing and playing the guitar, & making sound and video compositions.
Diane Madden began dancing as a 13 year old, thinking it would cure her clumsiness. Thirty six years later she’s still waiting. In the meantime she’s studied Ballet, Jazz, Graham, Limon, Hawkins, Improvisation, Contact Improvisation, Anatomy, Alexander & Klein Techniques, Aikido and various “Release” approaches to dance. She’s been dancing with Trisha Brown since 1980, acting as Company Rehearsal Director from 1984-2000. Dancing with Channel Z from 1984-1990 provided invaluable experience in improvisation and since then she’s sought opportunities to be directed by, collaborate or study with members Paul Langland, Daniel Lepkoff and Nina Martin. She teaches her approach to dance, which incorporates technique, improvisation, composition and performance, extensively in NYC and abroad. Diane enjoys performing her improvisationally-based solos and is thrilled to currently be dancing for Vicky Shick.
Since 1976, Nina Martin has been a dedicated force in the development of postmodern dance as a performer, choreographer, organization builder, and teacher. For nearly twenty years she worked in New York City as a professional dance artist and major activist in the downtown dance community. From 1995 -2000, Martin was co-founder of Lower Left Performance Collective, instigating a postmodern aesthetic in dance and community philosophy in southern California. Since 2001 she continues to envision Lower Left as a virtual inter-national organization and has been carving out a dance destination in remote Far West Texas as board member and programming director of Marfa Live Arts.
As a performer, Martin toured nationally as a member of David Gordon's Pick Up Company and was in the original cast of Martha Clarke’s Miracolo D'More. She was a member of the New York based Channel Z, a performance collective, that she co-founded with Stephen Petronio, Randy Warshaw, Diane Madden, Paul Langland, Danny Lepkoff, and Robin Feld. Cynthia Novack highlights Martin’s choreography in Sharing the Dance, a comprehensive study on Contact Improvisation and American Culture. Martin also danced with Steve Paxton in "Beyond the Mainstream," a production of the PBS Dance in America series. Additionally she has performed and collaborated with numerous artists including Deborah Hay, Simone Forti and most recently in collaborative performance with Mary Overlie and Lower Left.
As a choreographer, Martin founded Nina Martin/Performance, which she directed from 1979-1994. Martin’s choreography and collaborations have been produced in New York City at PS 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace, Creative Time, Movement Research, and La Mama ETC. Her work has been produced in the US and internationally in Seattle, Austin, San Antonio, and Cleveland, Helsinki, Holland, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Venezuela and Russia. Nina Martin/Performance received choreography fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1984, ‘85, ‘86 ‘87, ‘88, ‘89), the Jerome Foundation (1985), the New York State Council on the Arts (1988, 1990), Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation (1989, 1990) and "Meet the Composer" Composer -Choreographer grant with Michael Daughtery (1991). In California she was awarded a “Dance Makers” grant from the Irvine Foundation. In San Diego Martin received three Tommy Awards for her innovative choreographies and community activism. The Texas Commission on the Arts supports her work with grants to Marfa Live Arts.
As an organization builder, Martin served as a board member for Movement Research NYC. Martin co-founded the New York Dance Intensive, a unique full-time postmodern performance training program. In 1992, Martin gathered a network of professional dancers to form Locktime Performance where she began developing her unique dance investigations called Rewire/Dancing States and Ensemble Thinking. After moving to San Diego, Martin spearheaded Lower Left Performance Collective. Martin has annually created work with Lower Left as well as creating commissioned work for professional dancers such as Tonnie Sammartano, Jennifer Keller, and various university companies.
As a teacher, Martin has secured a place as a master teacher, through her classes in Articulating the Solo Body, Rewire/Dancing States, Contact improvisation, Hamilton Floor Barre, and Ensemble Thinking. Martin has taught on faculty at New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing ‘80-‘92, University of California at Los Angeles Dept. of World Arts and Culture ’96-’99, Trinity University La Mama Program, University of California at San Diego, San Diego State University, the School for the Development of New Dance in Amsterdam and Arnhem, and Helsinki’s National Dance School. She is also a featured teacher at many festivals including the Seattle Festival for Alternative Dance, Dance Weeks in Vienna, the International Summer School of Dance Tokyo and The International Festival of Movement in Yaroslavl, Russia. Most recently she was guest faculty at New York University and Mills College.
Stephen Petronio was born in Newark, New Jersey, and received a B.A. from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where he began dancing in 1974. Initially inspired by the dancing of Rudolf Nureyev and Steve Paxton, Petronio was the first male dancer of the Trisha Brown Company (1979 to 1986). He was founding member of and trouble maker in the improvisational performance group Channel Z. He founded Stephen Petronio Company in 1984 and has since created an expansive body of work marked by an unmistakable movement language and ground-breaking choreography in collaboration with contemporary innovators in the fields of music, visual arts and fashion.
Petronio has collaborated with composers Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Michael Nyman, James Lavelle, Wire, Diamanda Galás, Sheila Chandra, Lenny Pickett, and on numerous works with David Linton; visual artists Cindy Sherman, Anish Kapoor, Donald Baechler, Stephen Hannock, Justin Terzi, Charles Atlas, Tal Yarden and Trisha Fox; fashion designers Rachel Roy, Tara Subkoff/Imitation of Christ, Leigh Bowery, Manolo, Paul Compitus and Tanya Sarne/Ghost; and long time collaborator and Resident Lighting Designer Ken Tabachnick.
Stephen Petronio Company have been presented at some of the most prestigious venues on six continents over the past 24 years and Stephen has received numerous accolades, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, an American Choreographer Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award/Bessie and was recently inducted into the Nutley, N.J Hall of Fame. He has also been commissioned by some of the world’s premiere modern and ballet companies: William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet (Simulacrum Court, 1987), Tulsa Opera (Le Trouvere, 1990), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Laytext, 1992), Lyon Opera Ballet (Extravenus, 1994), Maggio Danza Florence (Mid-Summer’s Night Dream, 1996), Sydney Dance Company (Underland, 2003), Washington Ballet (De-Capulet, 2007) and The Scottish Ballet (Ride the Beast, 2007).
Company Repertory has been re-staged on companies all over the world including: The Scottish Ballet, Ballet National de Marseille, Ballet Lorraine, London Contemporary Dance Theater, Chamber Dance Company in Seattle, Skolen for Moderne Dans in Denmark, Norrdans in Sweden, and X Factor Dance Company in Edinburgh, among others.
Randy Warshaw accidentally began dancing in 1977 while a student at Hampshire College. He quickly met Steve Paxton and began performing with him and teaching Contact Improvisation. Within his first 6 months, he met the other members of what would later become Channel Z. From 1980-1987 he was a member of Trisha Brown's company in New York, creating original roles in many pieces including Set and Reset. In 1987 he left Trisha's company to found his own company, which had its debut in April of that year at Dance Theater Workshop with the premiere of Fragile Anchor. From 1987-1995 he created many works for his own company and other major companies internationally. He dissolved his company in 1995 in order to work full-time in Europe, developing his own movement training technique and teaching choreography at venues including the Internationale Tanzwochen in Vienna and at other major European festivals. He was a teaching staff member at Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker's school, PARTS, from 1997-1999.
He retired from dance in 1999 in order to return to New York and participate in the Internet revolution. Originally a member of a financial district web shop creating large-scale websites, he went on to develop the text-messaging software that connects the wireless phone companies, negotiating all SMS traffic between them. This software opened the text-messaging market in North America. Currently he is Senior Manager of Software Development at RealNetworks, in New York, where he lives with his wife Celine and their two boys Cal, 8 years old, and Ned, 5 years old.
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Channel Z
Channel Z