Artists

Born and raised in Chicago, Lara Miller's work is strongly influenced by the city's architectural and cultural landscape. Ecological sensitivity and fascination with both the built and moving form flow through each piece. Lara's work has attracted acclaim across the U.S. and recently in the UK.

While still an undergraduate at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lara's garments electrified local audiences and her costume work for a number of the city's dance companies was widely acclaimed. In May 2005, Lara devoted herself full-time to the development of her women's wear line. Lara has made repeat appearances in GenArt's Fresh Faces, been named "Indie Designer of the Year" by Chicago Magazine and has been featured on Elle.com, The Today Show, the CBS Evening News, and in publications such as Lucky Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and WWD among many others.

At the personal request of Mayor Richard M. Daley, Lara serves on The Mayor's Fashion Council. Her line is carried in over 40 stores throughout the world and is represented by The Four Hundred, New York's first showroom exclusively dedicated to sustainable design.

Website: 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.

Website: www.abigail-glaum-lathbury.com

Richard Woodbury is a composer and sound designer with extensive credits in theater, dance and media arts. He is the recipient of the Ruth Page Award as "Outstanding Collaborative Artist" and Joseph Jefferson, Helen Hayes, and Ovation Awards for "Outstanding Sound Design".

His work for theater include music and/or sound design for critically acclaimed Broadway productions of August: Osage County, and Talk Radio; Tony Award-winning productions of A Long Day's Journey Into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Death of a Salesman, and The Young Man from Atlanta and numerous productions for Chicago's renowned Goodman and Steppenwolf Theaters. Richard has also composed more than 20 commissioned scores for dance including Overflow for The Seldoms in Chicago and Pentimento for The Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in New York.

His media work includes music and sound design for several experimental films, planetarium programs and commercial music for clients such as Goldshall Design and Film, Playboy, Anchor Bank, First Alert, PACE Bus Systems and others. Richard is a faculty member at Columbia College Chicago serving as Music Director in the Dance Department.

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.

Website: 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.

Ms. Ballard is the lighting supervisor for David Dorfman Dance and is Technical Assistant at the Dance Center of Columbia College. She has worked for numerous dance companies including Hedwig Dance, Mordine & Co., Dance COLEctive and Same Planet Different World. Ms. Ballard has been a part of numerous festivals including the American Dance Festival, and has toured nationally and internationally. Ms. Ballard earned her MFA from the University of Florida.

Website: www.overlaplighting.com

Anke Loh is a designer and assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute. She studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, earning a BFA in 1998 and an MFA in 1999. Her fashion design and art have been shown worldwide, including the recent Dressing Light project at UBS Tower and the Chicago Cultural Center; an installation in Liebfrauen Church, Münster, Germany; at Gallery Simone Gaubatz in Paris; Museu Tèxtill de la Indumentària in Barcelona; and the Musée d'Art & Industrie in Saint-Etienne, France.

The Anke Loh collection has been presented in runway shows at the Centre Pompidou in Paris; the Osaka Collection Show in Japan; and Mode 2001 Landed in Antwerp. Loh designs costumes for theatre and dance companies, including Rosas / Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker in Brussels. In addition, Loh was honored as a Laureate at the Festival International des Arts et de la Mode in Hyères, France.

Website: www.ankeloh.net

Born in the UK in 1960. Fraser Taylor is an interdisciplinary artist who works with a range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and animation. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in printed textiles from Glasgow School of Art, Taylor went on to complete his Masters in Fine Art at the Royal Collage of Art, London.

In 1983 he co-founded 'The Cloth', a collaborative studio, established to enable artists to move freely between fine art and design projects. The Cloth designed numerous textile collections, which were manufactured in Tokyo, Milan, Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles. Since 1983, Taylor has exhibited internationally; venues include Jill George Gallery and StART Space, London; Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow; Gallery Boards, Paris; Galeria Jorge Alcolea, Madrid; Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney.

From 1996 to 2001, he was the assistant curator of 'Japanese and British Art Now' an exchange program established to provide a curriculum of exhibitions and workshops, encouraging discourses between artists working in London and Tokyo.

Since 1983 he has lectured at fine art and design schools including Goldsmiths College University of London, Central St Martins the London Institute, The Royal College of Art and Glasgow School of Art. In 1999 Taylor was invited to take part in a summer program, 'London in Chicago' at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, which led to his appointment as Visiting Artist in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies in 2001.

Website: www.frasertaylor.com

Tim has been an active member of Chicago's creative music scene since moving there in 1997. He has performed, composed, recorded, and toured with many of the city's celebrated musicians and ensembles. Along with performing percussion duties in internationally acclaimed bands including the Vandermark 5, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, and The Engines, Tim maintains an active composing schedule, writing for his own groups as well as contributing to a number of collaborative ensembles including chamber groups, jazz ensembles, dance, and film.

Tim has had the fortunate experience to perform and record with many of the giants of improvised music. Some of these musicians include: 1999 McArthur Award winner Ken Vandermark, German saxophonist Peter Brotzman, percussionist Michael Zerang, New York cellist Erik Friedlander, and legendary saxophonist Fred Anderson.

His festival performances include: Suoni Per Il Poplo in Montreal QC, North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, The Newport Jazz Festival, Le Mans Jazz Festival in Le Mans, France, Banlieue Bleue Festival in Paris, the Chicago Jazz Festival, Enjoy Jazz Festival in Mannheim, Germany, Festival Jazz a Mulhouse in Mulhouse, France, Umbrella Music Festival in Chicago, Ring Ring Festival in Belgrade, Serbia, Lviv Jazz Festival in Lviv, Ukraine, Debrecen Jazz Days in Debrecen, Hungary, Wels Jazz Festival in Wels, Austria, Phrenology Fest in Chicago, the Elastic Festival of Improvised music in Chicago, and the Third Ward Jazz Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Website: timdaisy.wordpress.com