RESIDENT ARTISTS
photography by David Nash
Jaka Zakajinn
Founder / Co-Artistic Director / Mover
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Jaka Zakajinn (formerly Pearlann Porter) is an improvisational performing artist, visual-conductor, physical-poet and experimental filmmaker, Jaka is a passionate instigator of new ideas in dance and an investigator of physical expression. Jaka's medium is the improvisational postmodern-jazz movement method THE ELLIPSIS CONDITION™. The canvases are Pittsburgh and Paris.
Jaka is the Founding Artistic Director of The Pillow Project, and the Founding Director of The Space Upstairs, where she is a full-time Resident Artist and the regular host/creator of the long-running SECOND SATURDAYS jazz-happenings. Jaka holds a BFA in Jazz Dance from Point Park University where they have been on dance faculty for 20+ years. Jaka has held artist residencies and/or created original work for GroundWorks Dance Theater, University North Carolina School for the Arts, Endacott College, The Dance Alloy, August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Pittsburgh, Slippery Rock University, Dance Conservatory of Pittsburgh, Point Park University, LABCO Dance, CAPA Performing Arts Hight School, and TEDxGrandviewAve. Jaka was named one of Dance Magazine's 25 To Watch in 2010, Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Best in Dance (2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014), Pittsburgh Magazine's Best of the 'Burgh (2013, 2018), and has been seven-times nominated for the Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award.
Jaka currently lives in Pittsburgh with partner and co-collaborator John Lambert., where they are writing a book on physical-jazz and their postmodern-jazz methodology THE ELLIPSIS CONDITION™
photography by Pearlann Porter
John Lambert
Co-Artistic Director / Carpenter / Poet
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John Lambert is a practicing poet of over thirty years, previously of New Orleans and rooted now in Pittsburgh to collaborate with musicians, composers, dancers, mixed-media artists and writers to promote the sensibility of sharing ideas between the disciplines. As a classically trained, professional violinist, his methodology seeks a partnering of the lessons learned from music and other mediums with the opportunities inherent in dance.
He is a current resident artist at the Space Upstairs, acting as poet, writer, musician, master carpenter and student of THE ELLIPSIS CONDITION™ improvisational philosophy. At The Space, John is also the regular host of the monthly writer's group, THE POETRY ATELIER, and advocates insights be shared between art forms and provokes thought by replenishing prompts on walls in chalk.
He is partnered with Jaka Zakajinn in the creation, orchestration and funding of new works to engage audiences and performers, and to compile a formal document for publication on this new improvisational method. By choosing to live the postmodern-jazz as a verb, he advocates that we need never be separate from our craft, in or out of any studio.
photography by Cassie K Rusnak
Mike Cooper
Resident Luminographer
Mike Cooper has been a Resident Artist at The Space Upstairs since the beginning, and has worked alongside director Jaka Zakajinn for over 20 years, including The Pillow Project's Twenty Eighty-Four, Paper Memory and Backlit in a Whole New D. In this role he also developed Luminography, an original projection methodology that creates sensational and psychedelic imagery from nothing but a live video feed, no computers or filters necessary. Outside of The Space, he has worked with local artists and musicians such as slowdanger and Kaylin Horgan, as well as the Andy Warhol Museum and Carnegie Science Center.
slowdanger
Resident Artists
Taylor Knight & Anna Thompson have been Resident Artists at The Space Upstairs for over 10 years and are co-founding artistic directors of slowdanger, a multidisciplinary performance organism based in Pittsburgh, PA. slowdanger uses a systematic approach to movement, integrative technology, found material, electronic instrumentation, vocalization, physiological centering, and ontological examination to produce their performance work, which utilizes ritual practice to delve into circular life patterning including effort, transformation, and death. Through the process of making each piece, slowdanger works with a heightened understanding of energy, synergy, action, gender, time, and storytelling. The more they engage in this collaborative work, the more they recognize the manifestation of their work as a non-binary entity that is one body amassed of multiple bodies in space.
Their work has been presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, Springboard Danse Montreal, Carnegie Museum of Art, Place Des Arts, Université du Québec à Montréal, Usine C, Dance Place, The Andy Warhol Museum, theCURRENTSESSIONS, BAAD!, Triskelion Arts, New Hazlett Theater, Kelly Strayhorn Theater and more. They have facilitated workshops at Carnegie Museum of Art, Gibney, Peridance, Painted Bride Arts Center, BAX, Slippery Rock University, Middlebury College, Point Park University, Carnegie Mellon University and more. slowdanger was one of Dance Magazine’s 2018 “25 to Watch”, 2019 Performers in Residence at Carnegie Museum of Art and 2022-2023 resident artists at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland. Their work has been supported by The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, The Heinz Endowments & Pittsburgh Foundation Investing in Professional Artists Award, The Opportunity Fund, PNC Charitable Trusts, Pittsburgh Foundations A W Mellon Fund and The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Special Presenters Initiative with Dance Place.
Kaylin Horgan
Resident Artist
Kaylin Horgan began her dance training with Tammy Snyder at the young age of 2. She continued her dance education with facility at The Pittsburgh High School for Creative and Performing Arts, and attended Point Park University, graduating with a BA in jazz dance.
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As a founding member of Jaka Zakajinn’s Pillow Project, she traveled to Paris, London, Amsterdam and Dublin; performing with world renowned jazz musicians such as Moe Seager, Sabir Mateen, Rasul Siddik and Patrick Sadoc.
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In 2010, she became a founding member and the Artistic Assistant of August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble, directed by Greer Reed. During her 6 seasons with AWCDE, she worked with choreographers such as Kyle Abraham, Robert Battle, Sidra Bell, Camille A. Brown, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Crystal Frazier, Christopher Huggins and Terence Greene.
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She currently dances with AntonioBrownDance (NYC), is a member of Raelle Hodges’s Elephant Room (NYC), Wylliams Henry Contemporary Dance Company (Kansas City, MO) and is a modern dance faculty member at Pittsburgh CAPA High School (Pittsburgh) .
Mia Giovanna Kuzma
Resident Artist
Mia Giovanna Kuzma is a movement artist originally from Vashon Island, Washington, Kuzma moved to Pittsburgh to pursue her BFA in dance at Point Park University on scholarship. During her time at Point Park, Mia Giovanna has been featured in works by Yoshiaki Nakano, Matthew Neenan, LeeWei Chao, Martha Graham, George Balanchine, Jimmy Gamonet, Daniel Karasik, and Julia Erickson. She has had the honor of training with Norbert De La Cruz III, Marc Spaulding, Jae Man Joo, Jesse Factor, and Susan Stowe. In her junior and senior years, she was nominated by her faculty and received the Outstanding Student Award.
Mia Giovanna's other creative endeavors include producing and dancing in Original Works—a full-length filmed dance production—premiered by the Vashon Center for the Arts. Additionally, she is proud to have fundraised and presented Launch, a multidisciplinary evening-length production. Kuzma has shown her own choreography in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Mia Giovanna continues to create interdisciplinary works that touch on themes of humanity as the newest resident artist at The Space Upstairs.
Kaben Benavides
Resident Artist
Kaben Benavides is a movement artist whose expressive style exists in the confluence of aesthetic beauty, and its antithesis. After graduating with her BFA in dance from Point Park University, she has continued performing withThe Pillow Project dance company and is currently completing her artistic residency at The Space Upstairs. Kaben has most recently debuted her work In Shade Of at The Space Upstairs, where she choreographed, produced, and performed in her first full length dance theater show.
She has been the movement director for an official visualizer for the band XiuXiu and an official music video for Laura Jane Grace. Her work has been performed at the George Rowland White Performance Center in Downtown Pittsburgh, at the Regional Dance America Festival, The Charity Randall Theater, and at The Space Upstairs.