MEMBER BIO: David Stutz

David premiered the role of King Henry VIII in the original production of The Passion of Saint Thomas More, and has worked with Garrett on numerous projects since that time. He performs regularly in the Pacific Northwest as both vocal soloist and in vocal chamber ensembles, and his forays into staged works range from medieval mystery plays to grand opera. Besides his interest in contemporary works, he is a specialist in early music and baroque opera, appearing in a highly acclaimed production of Claudio Monteverdi's L'Incoronzione di Poppea, in Francesca Caccini's La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall'Isola d'Alcina, and in Emilio de' Cavalieri's La Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo.

MEMBER BIO: AC Petersen

Noted by the Seattle Times as "one of the most independent of Seattle's independent choreographers," A.C. Petersen has been creating dances since 1983. A.C. Petersen Dance develops, produces and presents dance/performance works, assembling an advisory team, artistic team, and performers as each project takes shape.

Petersen's inspirations range from Sumo ritual (Ozeki, a collaboration with Seattle Kokon Taiko), to Japanese Tea ceremony (Chado, presented by the Northwest Asian American Theatre), to children's stories (The Girls of St. Madeleine's, with composer Garrett Fisher). Frequent collaborators include Fisher, with whom Petersen has created several works, Seattle Kokon Taiko, and lighting designer Meg Fox, who has designed lights for her work since 1990.

Ms. Petersen has been awarded grants from the King County and Seattle Arts Commissions, as well as the Bossak/Heilbron Foundation. Her work has been produced and presented by On the Boards, the Northwest Asian American Theatre, the Seattle Aquarium, Bumbershoot Arts Festival, and Vacouver B.C.'s Powell Street Festival, and has been commissioned by Seattle's D-9 Dance Collective, and Seattle Kokon Taiko.

In her first year of performing, she worked with choreographer Pat Graney, who utilized spoken text and pedestrian movement (her first work with Graney was Ida, where she spoke the text of Gertrude Stein while walking, running, and rolling on the floor). From that point, Petersen rejected traditional movement vocabularies she had acquired from her training in ballet, jazz and modern dance. She shifted her focus to the development of a "pedestrian" movement vocabulary, which draws from movement that humans do every day, although a more specific vocabulary is developed during the creation of each work.
Sonna d'Oro, performed by the company at Bellevue Community College, was her first foray into a non-traditional movement vocabulary, and integrated American Sign Language, text from Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book, as well as sleep and sleepwalking movement. While performing in the Eastide Moving Company, Petersen also performed in works by choreographers Gina Gibney, Jesse Jaramillo, and Penny Hutchinson. As she pursued choreography, Petersen continued to study modern dance with the late Daniel Chick at Dance Center Seattle, and ballet with Hannah C. Wiley at the University of Washington.

Currently, She is working on projects in a variety of mediums: writing, set design, audio and radio.

Visit AC's website.

MEMBER BIO: Dean Moore (Percussion)

Dean is a percussionist who performs with a variety of collaborative projects, and is also a solo performer. He specializes in playing music for gongs and other resonate metals. Dean is a member of Eye Music, a group dedicated to interpreting existing graphic scores as well as composing new scores. Dean has been working with Garrett Fisher and the Fisher Ensemble since 2005. He has performed with The Aono Jikken Ensemble, most recently as part of a live foley team performing an original foley sound score for Guy Maddin’s latest silent film “Brand Upon The Brain”. Dean has performed and composed music for local dance companies and was also a founding member of Circus Contraption.

Visit Dean's website.

MEMBER BIO: Louise McCagg (Sculptor)

Louise has been collaborating with Garrett Fisher since 1994 in four of his productions. A New York-based artist, Louise has been exploring methods of sculpting without mimicking the human form: she makes “face prints” of people’s faces, then shrinks the heads to the dimensions she needs. She uses masks in many forms, materials and contexts, ranging from bronze sculpture to books and postcards. For this production she used life-sized masks. Louise has shown her work regularly throughout the United States and Europe, including the A.I.R. Gallery (New York), 128 Gallery (New York), Hebrew Union College (New York), Hungarian Cultural Institute (Berlin, Germany), 2B Gallery (Budapest, Hungary), Sejong Arts Festival (Seoul, Korea), and is part of the Mills College, Yale library, and University of California (Stanford) collections.

Visit Louise's website.

MEMBER BIO: Christy Fisher (Choreographer, Director)

Christy has enjoyed collaborating with Garrett for the last 15 years, presenting work at the HERE Center’s American Living Room Series (NYC), Judson Church (NYC), On the Boards Northwest New Works Festivals, On the Boards Artist Access Programs, and Centrum (Port Townsend). Christy has presented solo work at Movement Research (NYC), On the Boards, and the Seattle Art Museum. She has performed with Works/Laura Glenn Dance (Hartford/NYC) and with Haruko Nishimura/ Degenerate Art Ensemble (Seattle). Christy also produces !!Artslaunch!!, a bi-annual, interdisciplinary forum for Seattle’s visual, literary and performing artists. In 2008 Christy choreographed and co-directed the Fisher Ensemble’s productions of Psyche (Seattle) and Moon in the Bucket (New York), which TimeOut New York described as “a haunting, ineffably lovely choreographed oratorio.”

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MEMBER BIO: Linda Strandberg (Vocalist)

Linda sang the role of Galileo’s daughter in Stargazer, the Daughter in The Passion of St. Thomas More and Athena in Dream of Zeus, and was the lead vocalist in Christy Fisher’s Beam. She is assistant music director and soprano soloist at Plymouth Church, where she also directs the youth music program. She is a soloist and cantor at St. James Cathedral, where she is also assistant director of the Women of St.James Schola. She performs regularly with the Tudor Choir, records for film and video, and maintains a private voice studio. She recently appeared with the Northwest Puppet Center, PNB, Choral Arts, SABO, and the Women’s Medieval Choir. Her time outside of the musical arena is often spent creating works of art in residential gardens.

MEMBER BIO: Stan Shikuma (Taiko)

Stan has been playing taiko since 1981. He performs with Seattle Kokon Taiko, directs Kaze Daiko (a taiko youth group), and serves on the Advisory Board of the North American Taiko Conference. As a taiko performer, composer and percussionist, he has worked on: new opera, live accompaniment to Japanese silent films, puppet theater, a Playstation game soundtrack, an educational CD-ROM, Butoh dance, and avant-garde performance pieces. He has also written several articles on taiko history, teaching, and performance.