Selected biographies –
for more information, please contact incd@ccarts.ca
Homero Aridjis is one of
Mexico's foremost poets and novelists. He was born in Contepec, Michocan,
Mexico, in 1940 to a Greek father and Mexican mother.Two collections of his
poetry have appeared in English, Blue Spaces and Exaltation of Light , and
three novels: Persephone , 1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezón of Castile
(for which he was awarded the Grinzane Cavour Prize), and The Lord of the Last
Days: Visions of the Year 1000 . His work has been translated into ten
languages. Twice the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has taught at
Columbia University, New York University, and Indiana University. He has been
Mexican ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland, and he is the founder
and president of the Group of 100, an international environmental organization
of writers, artists, and scientists. He is the president of PEN International
and lives in Mexico City. His wife, Betty Ferber, has served as English
translator for his poems and novels.
GILLIAN
ARMSTRONG
Gillian Armstrong is a
renowned Australian film maker, who was awarded the Women In
Hollywood Icon Award in recognition of her contribution to the film industry.
Major films include:
2001 CHARLOTTE GRAY
1997 OSCAR
AND LUCINDA
1996 NOT
FOURTEEN AGAIN Selected officially for competition at the 1996
Berlin Film Festival, Panorama Section.
Winner 1996 AFI Awards for Best Documentary
Nominated 1996 AFI Awards for Best Cinematography
in a non-feature film
1994 LITTLE
WOMEN
Nominated
for three 67th Academy Awards
‘Best Actor’, ‘Best Music’ and ‘Best Costumes’
1990-91
THE LAST DAYS OF CHEZ NOUS
Nominated
for 11 Australian Film Institute Awards including 'Best Film' and 'Best
Director'.
Winner - 'Best Actress' (Lisa
Harrow).
1978 MY BRILLIANT CAREER (100 min colour)
Official
Australian entry Cannes Film Festival 1979
Winner of eleven categories in the Australian Film
Institute Film Awards 1979 including Best Director, Best Film, Best Achievement
in Art Direction and Best Achievement in Cinematography
British Critics' Award 1980 Best First Feature
British Academy Award - Judy Davis - Nominated
Best Actress 1980 Golden Globe Awards 1981 - Nominated Best Foreign Film
Academy Awards 1981 - Best
Costume Design
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew
up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree
from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from
Radcliffe College.
Throughout her thirty years of writing, Margaret
Atwood has received numerous awards and several honorary degrees. She is the
author of more than twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and
is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970),
The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996). Her
newest novel, The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize, was
published in the fall of 2000. Negotiating With the Dead: A Writer on Writing
(2002), published by Cambridge University Press in March 2002, is her latest
book and her next novel, Oryx and Crake, will be published in April 2003. She
has an uncanny knack for writing books that anticipate the popular
preoccupations of her public.
Acclaimed for her talent for portraying both
personal and worldly problems of universal concern, Ms. Atwood's work has been
published in more than thirty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish,
Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with
novelist Graeme Gibson.
Swedish movie and theatre director, playwright, screenwriter.
Although Bergman is widely known as a film director, he has also become one of
the foreground figures of the modern Swedish theatre. Bergman's artistic career
includes about a hundred stage performances, forty radio productions, fifty
feature films, and fifteen TV productions. He is widely considered to be one of
the masters of 20th century film.
Major Films:
Sommarnattens leende (1955,
Smiles of the Summer Night)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Persona (1966)
Scenes from a Marriage (1974)
Fanny and Alexander (1983)
– winner, Best Foreign Film, Academy Awards
Sin Cha Hong is the first avantgarde modern dancer
in Korea, and is also famous as a meditation master, and a best-seller writer.
Her works are dealing with unique themes like life and death, human and nature.
Sin Cha
Hong was born and educated in Korea. She plunged into New York City in 1966,
gaining a master degree in Dance from Columbia University. In the early 1970s,
she began to create a stir in the dance community with her bold new
choreography. Ms. Hong returned to Seoul in 1975, where she shocked and
inspired audiences with 'Labyrinth', an experimental dance and vocal
collaboration with Korean composer Byung Ki Hwang. Following this and other
initial successes in dance and music, she embarked on a private spiritual
journey, studying with religious masters in India and travelling extensively to
holy places in Israel, Tibet, South America and East Asia. When Sin Cha Hong
was living in New York during the 1970-80s, she presented new dance theater
works nearly every year in her La Ma Ma productions. As a soloist and with her
Laughing Stone Dance Theater Company, Ms. Hong has performed throughout the
United States, Europe and Asia to critical and audience acclaim. Ms. Hong
brought her creative focus back to Asia in 1990, returning to Korea to live and
work.
media artist, New Media
curator and founder of
NewMediaArtprojectNetwork (Germany)
detailed bio on:
http://www.agricola-de-cologne.de/bio/bio_agricola1.htm
Exhibition Coordinator
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA)
www.pica.org.au
KAREL GLASTRA VAN LOON
Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 24, 1962
Profession: writer
·
Desk editor with Elsevier Science Publishers, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (1983-’84)
·
On-the-job training at VNU Magazine Publishers, Libelle, Vrouw Nu en Nieuwe Revu (1984-'85)
·
Reporter for general news magazine Nieuwe
Revu, reports both from Holland and abroad, with emphasis on politics,
environment and human interest (1985-’90)
·
Staff editor for Nieuwe Revu
(1990)
·
Freelance journalist (since 1991)
Freelance work
·
Articles for Nieuwe Revu, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Vrij Nederland,
HP-de Tijd, de Volkskrant, Hollands Maandblad
·
Scripts for p.r.-films for Academisch Ziekenhuis Utrecht
·
Translation of the cartoon series The Simpsons (RTL-4)
·
Researcher/producer for talkshow Karel
(Karel van de Graaf, Avro-television
1992-’93)
·
Researcher/producer for Lolapaloeza
(VPRO-television, 1993-’94)
·
Researcher/producer for Paul Haenen (VPRO-television, 1994)
·
Researcher/producer Political
broadcasts Socialist Party (1994-2001)
·
Researcher/producer for newsmagazine Hagens
(Veronica television, 1995-’96)
·
Researcher/producer for Het laatste
woord (Veronica television, 1996-’97)
·
Researcher/producer and reporter/director for Lopende Zaken, current affairs programme (VPRO-television,
1997-’98)
·
De Beuk Erin,
a children’s book on environmental issues (with Tiziana Alings and
illustrator Olivier Saive, Publisher BSO, 1992)
·
De Poppe-methode, a non-fiction book on
evironmental detective Remi Poppe (Publisher Jan van Arkel, 1993)
·
Herman, the biography of
a genetically engineered bull, a non-fiction book on
genetic engineering (with Karin Kuiper,
Publisher L.J.Veen, 1995)
·
Vannacht is de wereld gek
geworden (Tonight the world has gone crazy), book of short stories
based on my travels as a journalist (Publisher L.J. Veen, 1997). Nominated for
the ECI Prijs voor Schrijvers van Nu 1998
·
De Passievrucht,
novel (Publisher L.J. Veen, 1999). Won the Generale Bank Literatuur Prijs 1999. Sold
250 000 copies in The Netherlands. Translated (or presently being translated)
into 18 languages. Published in English as A father’s Affair by
Canongate. Will be published in the United States in April 2003. Will be turned
into a movie in 2003.
·
De Laatste Oorlog (The Last War), non-fiction book on the
role of the Western countries in the Yugoslav Wars (with Jan Marijnissen,
Publisher L.J. Veen, 2000)
·
Lisa’s Adem, novel (Publisher L.J. Veen, 2001). Long-listed for
the Libris Literatuur Prijs 2001. Sold 80 000 copies in The Netherlands so far.
Has been translated into German and Swedish. Other translations are presently
being negotiated.
From November 2002 until February 2003, I was in Thailand, doing research
among the Karen refugees of Burma in the border area. I am presently working on
a novel based on that research.
A distinguished actor of the stage and screen,
Danny Glover is known for his work in both Hollywood blockbusters and serious
dramatic films. Towering and quietly forceful, Glover lends gravity and complexity
to the diverse characters he has portrayed throughout his lengthy career.
A native of San Francisco, where he was born July
22, 1947, Glover attended San Francisco State and received his dramatic
training at the American Conservatory Theatre's Black Actors' Workshop. He made
his film debut in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). In the early '80s, Glover made
his name portraying characters ranging from the sympathetic in Places in the
Heart (1984) to the menacing in Witness (1985) and The Color Purple (1984). He
reached box-office-gold status with the three Lethal Weapon flicks produced
between 1987 and 1992, playing the conservative, family-man partner of
"loose cannon" L.A. cop Mel Gibson. Glover carried over his
fiddle-and-bow relationship with Gibson into his off-screen life, and also
contributed an amusing cameo (complete with his Lethal Weapon catch-phrase
"I'm gettin' too old for this!") in Maverick (1994). In 1998, Glover
again reprised his role for the blockbuster-proportioned Lethal Weapon 4, and
that same year gave a stirring performance in the little-seen Beloved.
On television, Glover played the title role in
Mandela (1987), cowpoke Joshua Deets in the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove,
legendary railroad man John Henry in a 1988 installment of Shelley Duvall's
Tall Tales, and the mercurial leading character in the 1989 "American
Playhouse" revival of A Raisin in the Sun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Award-winning South African writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Literature (1991) and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France).
Principal works: 10 novels, including A Guest of Honour, The
Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, July's People, A Sport of Nature, My Son's
Story and her most recent, None to Accompany Me.
10 short story collections, the most recent Jump, published 1991, and Why
Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972, published 1992.
Non-fiction: The Essential Gesture; On the Mines; The Black Interpreters.
A leading composer, performer, and scholar of
Korean traditional music. In 1990 he led a group of South Korean musicians at a
Music Festival for Reunification in Pyeongyang, North Korea, and was named
Performing Artist of the Year by the Korean Critics’ Association. He has toured
widely since 1964, performing both traditional pieces and his own compositions
in major venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Paris’ Musee Guimet.
Sumi Jo (UNESCO
Artists for Peace, April 2003.)
A disciple of Maria Callas and Dame Joan Sutherland, a Korean-upbringing vocalist, Sumi Jo has emerged as one of the most beautiful voices in contemporary Opera. As a coloratura soprano, Sumi Jo is a true diva of the highest order. Nature has been bountiful to her by endowing her with a fabulous voice and memory. Admired for the astonishing emotional expression, authenticity, and warmth of her coloratura voice and for her impeccable artisanship pursing her originality, Sumi Jo has claimed as “a voice from above” by the immortal maestro Conductor in the 20th century, Herbert von Karajan. Sumi Jo manages to create a warm, human relationship between herself and audiences on the stage. That is the way Sumi Jo likes to work. She tries to arouse the men through uninhibited emotional demonstrations as the music is being sung. She swoons, prays, scowls, fumes, entreats, and sings. She is not afraid to voice her feminine enthusiasms. She totally indulges herself in a particularly beautiful passage of her song and translates the musical sounds of composers into human experience. Her instinctive and innate musical intelligence provides her with an articulateness that enables her to transmit her artistic style clearly and precisely.
He made his debut with his novels 'Disgrace', 'The
Adventures of the Teacher'. His short stories are 'Land which Had 20 years of
Rain', 'Yellow earth' and his long stories are 'Fireworks', 'Taebaek Mountain
Range' and 'Arirang'. His work from the 80's, 'Taebaek Mountain Range' and
'Arirang' show his feelings towards Korean traitors for Japan. His works have
been introduced in Europe.
Tom Keneally is the multi-award-winning author of
twenty-six works of
fiction and eight works of non-fiction. In 1982 he
won the Booker Prize
for Schindler's Ark, which was made in to the
Academy Award-winning film
Schindler's List. His novels The Chant of Jimmie
Blacksmith, Gossip from
the Forest and Confederates were all short listed
for the Booker Prize,
while Bring Larks and Heroes and Three Cheers for
the Paraclete won the
Miles Franklin Award.
Tom is married with two daughters.
Chiha Kim
His real name is Yongil. Chiha is his pen name. He
graduated from the department of Art at Seoul University in 1966. He began his
literary career by the publication of the poem "Loess Road" in the
Poet in 1963. As a voice of the people and bared of the oppressed, not only
holds a significant position in the sphere of literature, but in contemporary
Korean modern history as well, tireless making his voice heard despite the
government's efforts to silence him by imprisoning him in the 1970s and 1980s.
We find a merging of art and politics, of literature and ideology in him. He
has championed the cause of a people oppressed under dictatorial regimes during
the latter half of twentieth century, relying on his poetic prowess as weaponry
for his battles. However, while his works are certainly representative of the
political fervor characterizing much of the literature from the 1960s onward
and ideology plays an essential role in his poems, it is indubitable that like
Neruda, he is foremost a poet. The lyricism and the natural rhythm of his
poetry are testimony to this fact. His collections of poetry include Loess
(1970), Burning Thirst, South (1982), Black Mountain and White
Room (1986), Staring at a Field of Stars (1989). A Rain Cloud of
This Dry Day (1988). He was awarded the Lotus Prize by the Association of
Asian and African Writers in 1975, the Isan Literature Prize in 1993, the
Chiyong Literature Prize in 2002 and also recognized for his achievements by
Poetry International in 1981.
PIERRE LARAUZA
French architect videographer
Born in Belgrade, Serbia
and Montenegro (Yugoslavia) - September, 17th 1959. Graduated from
Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts, in the class of
renowned Yugoslav painter Mr.Stoyan Celic, in 1984. I became a
member of the prestigious Serbian
Association of Visual Artists - ULUS in 1986,
and started exhibiting my works in
domicile country (in Belgrade, than the capital of the former Yugoslavia ) and
abroad. I showcased my work at individual exhibitions in Warsaw and
Krakow (Poland), Ciudad Bolivar (Venezuela) and Salzburg (Austria ). Throughout
June and July of 1985,
I was engaged in the completion of
the monumental mural decorating the facade of the "Laja Real" hotel
in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela. My works were also exhibited as a part of
several group
exhibitions held in Belgrade, Lubin and Warsaw (Poland), Salzburg, Paris
(France), New York (USA) and Sentendre (on the right bank of Danube,in the
vicinity of Budapest in Hungary). From 1999, I began my new adventure
- new media art & web art. My digital works participated in
many
New media festivals:
Germany - Violence Online Festival,
Italy - Pescara Electronic Artists Meeting,
Slovenia - MEMEFEST - international festival of radical communication,
Great Britain - Lancaster Film & New Media Festival
and I received a Award
for the best animation in Serbia - EXPOSE Festival of digital art.
Michael Ondaatje
Sri-Lanka native Michael Ondaatje is a literary
phenomenon: a best-selling writer, one whose work is a stunning fusion of jazz
rhythms, film montage technique, and profoundly beautiful language. Although he
is best known as a novelist, Ondaatje's work also encompasses memoir, poetry,
and film, and reveals a passion for defying conventional form. In his landmark
novel, The English Patient -- later made into the Academy Award-winning film --
he explores the history of people history does not explore, intersecting four
diverse lives at the end of World War II. Ondaatje is himself an interesting
intersection of cultures. Born in the former Ceylon of Dutch/Indian ancestry,
he was raised in London, and is now a Canadian citizen. From the memoir of his
childhood, Running in the Family, to his Governor-General's award-winning book
of poetry, There's a Trick With a Knife I'm Learning To Do, to his classic
novel, The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje casts a spell over his readers.
And having won the British Commonwealth's highest honor - the Booker Prize -
Ondaatje has taken his rightful place as a contemporary literary treasure.
He is the most famous drama producer in Korea.
A renowned stage director and actor in Hong Kong,
Tang has studied in l’Ecole de la
Belle de Mai and the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris where he
obtained a Maîtrise Diplôme on Theatrical Studies. He has also worked as an
assistant director and actor in Théâtre de la Main d’Or before returning to Hong
Kong in 1992.
He founded
his own company, No Man’s Land, in 1997. He is interested in a theatre
expressing the inner world of the actor by external theatrical means and how
these means change the perception of the actor. His works have been presented
in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Beijing, San Francisco, New York and Tashkent.
His recent directorial credits include Life and Death Trilogy, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, Alchemist, Between Life and Death, Deathwatch, Guan-yin: she who sees the cries of
the universe and The two or three
ways of making love around sunset. His theatre acting credits include Miss Margarida’s Way (Roberto Athyade), Two Civil Servants in a Skyscraper, Two Men on a No Man’s Land, Dream City, Millennium Autopsy, Deathwatch and
Sunshine Station.
He has also acted in the main role in From the Queen to the Chief Executive, a
Hong Kong film which opened the Panorama, Berlin Film Festival, 2001.
He has recently published Analysis and reflections on Meyerhold’s
acting theories and Life and death
trilogy: a theatrical research.
Tang’s international and local awards
include Distinguished Interpretative Performance in 1993 Tashkent International
Theatre Festival; Distinguished Performance in 1994 Hong Kong Drama Awards;
Best Actor in the Main Role in the 2003 Hong Kong Drama Awards; Director of one
of The Ten Best Productions in 1997, 2002 and 2003 Hong Kong Drama Awards;
nominations for the Best Director in 1994, 1995 and 2003 Hong Kong Drama
Awards. He also got the Jebsen fellowship of the Asian Cultural Council in
1998, Puppetry Research Grant of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in
1996.
Kwon Taek
Im, Screen Quota and Cultural Diversity
Director Im Kwon Taek made his film debut at the
age of 26 with his 「Farewell Duman River」 and he has made major
contributions to the Korean film industry with nearly 100 productions over a
span of four decades. In the process, he has received numerous domestic and
international awards for films, directing and appearing, and in 2002, Director
Im received the Best Director's Award at the prestigious Festival De Cannes for
his work 「Chiwhaseon」, an award that reflected world recognition
of the excellence of Korean films. Director Im has insisted on producing
movies that only a Korean could, and as a result his movies heavily reflect a
humanistic Korean sense of beauty, artistic spirit, and other aspects of Korean
culture and aesthetics. Director Im has successfully assimilated contents and
expression to provide a distinctive visual aesthetic in such outstanding movies
as 「Sopyonje」 and「ChunHyang」 which featured the
aesthetic presentation of traditional epoch song music and rhythm, and in 「Chiwhaseon」
of which Le Monde readily observed "More than a movie about scenes, it was
a living, moving scene that provided an endless illustration between thought
and creativity". Although Director Im's works concentrate on humanistic
themes, their contents and expression are indeed diverse and wide-ranging. And
even though they all reflect the warmth of his own human perceptions, he
constantly searches for new contents and expression, which makes it readily
possible for him to constantly test his own creative possibilities. His movies
combine the popular with the aesthetic for effective communication with his
audiences in a manner that leaves a lasting impression on all.
Thomson was born 1947 in Richmond
Hill, Ontario. He studied at the University of Toronto, Ontario, the National
Theatre School and in England. He is now one of the Canada's leading film,
television and stage actors. R.H. Thomson has played lead roles in many of the
country's major venues including Manitoba Theatre Centre (Death and the
Maiden), Canadian Stage (Oleanna, Inexpressible Island), Theatre Passe Muraille
(The Little Years), Tarragon Theatre (Daylight Saving), Toronto Free Theatre
(Hamlet), Toronto Workshop Productions (The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs),
Stratford Festival (Julius Caesar, Merry Wives of Windsor, Mary Stuart),
Theatre New Brunswick (Waiting for Godot) and Bastion Theatre (Comedians). More
recently he appeared in David Young's Clout at the National Arts Centre
(January, 2001).
Mr. Thomson has also directed at
Neptune Theatre, Theatre Plus, for Bard on the Beach, Ship's Company (recently,
autumn/summer 1999, David French's Salt-Water Moon) and Theatre in the Park.
Also, his own play, The Lost Boys, (a solo in which he performs) was presented
at Great Canadian Theatre Company in March, 2000 and at Canadian Stage in
February, 2002.
I have taught media arts production and
theory since 1996. Currently I'm a full-time lecturer in film
studies at Curtin University. I graduated from Murdoch University with
the degree of PhD in Philosophy in early 2003. I am a member of the Board
of CAN WA . I have been a media arts and community arts practitioner
since 1990, participating in collective hybrid art exhibitions at local venues
and events such as Artrage; coordinating and curating community arts
projects/exhibitons; and producing award-winning video art pieces in Australian
and USA festivals.