2019 PERFORMERS
~ Trium Parcae ~
Trium Parcae was founded in 2013 by Jessica Nadyka. After being trained professionally, Jessica has been teaching tribal fusion belly dancing for 10 years while maintaining practice in contemporary dance, hip hop and flamenco in France and abroad. Wishing to mix her vocation with a truthful human story, she suggests to her students and friends Audrey and Claire to form a company.
Trium Parcae quickly takes off in Toulouse, then in France and internationally (Belgium, Hungary, etc.). The company works on a dark atmosphere and develops its own universe with unsettling and graphic performances. The mix of hip hop, tribal fusion and contemporary styles allows grim creative freedom and bewitching staging from which no one comes out unscathed.
Trium Parcae on FB
~ Karolina Lux ~
Karolina Lux is a boundary-breaking fusion belly dancer based in Los Angeles. She has worked with such fantastic projects as Beats Antique, March Fourth Marching Band, Vagabond Opera, Zoe Jakes’ House of Tarot, and Vau de Vire Society. She has taught at such diverse events as the Dublin Burlesque Festival, Americana Burlesque and Sideshow Festival, or Tribal Festival Hanover, and appears teaching on numerous instructional DVDs. Karolina also writes music and choreographs for her own touring band, Sepiatonic. In Sepiatonic, she can be seen co-creating electronic music, singing, dancing, playing her trumpet, and changing costumes in 3 minutes!
Karolina believes in continuously growing as a dancer and instructor. She is constantly pushing her training in belly dance, waacking, vogue, popping, house dance, contemporary, ballet, jazz, and burlesque, and character acting. She did BA work in theater/film/world dance at San Francisco State University, UMASS Amherst, and Humboldt State University, and synthesized her knowledge into her new genre: Neo Bellydance. Karolina loves to help students find access to new shapes in dance, find new depths in their music, set clearer goals for their art, and tell their story more expressively on stage.
Karolina Lux on FB
~ Paul Mercer ~
Paul Mercer is a pioneer in neoclassical music, a violinist and composer whose sounds and timbres reveal the secret melodies and unlock the hidden stories of ancient violins and violas. His extensive Classical and Hindustani music training combines with decades of busking, playing in bands, managing a violin shop, and traveling to the four corners of the earth to create a distinctive style of layering centuries-old instruments with modern electronic effects. Paul has recorded and toured with artists including The Changelings, DP3, Jill Tracy, Zoe Keating, Brass Knuckle Surfer, and Faith And The Muse, and has composed more than 30 soundtracks for stage and film. His upcoming release "The Whispering in the Wood", the long-anticipated follow-up to his 2013 album "Ghosts", is a collection of improvisations and sonic explorations that unveils the voices of these precious instruments, speaking to us from beyond time.
Photo by Robin Davis - Robin Davis
www.paulmercermusic.com
~ Ariellah & Deshret Dance Company ~
Ariellah is an international fusion dancer, performer, and instructor with much passion in her heart for life, for music, for love… She has an extensive dance background that includes strict classical ballet training for 12 years with the Royal Academy of Dance from London. She has studied and performed belly dance since 2001, and was a founding member of The Indigo with Rachel Brice. In 2009, Ariellah began training in classical Indian Odissi dance, studying in India at the Shakti School of Dance and currently continues her studies of this dance form. Ariellah's style infuses many genres of dance, all with a modern dark flavour that is uniquely her own. Her dance manifests what is deep in her heart and expresses her own experience and perceptions of this wondrous and tragic thing called life. Deshret Dance Company was founded in early 2007 by Ariellah, the company’s artistic director and main choreographer. Deshret’s current collaborating dancers are Danielle White(assistant director), Karen R. Marshall, Jesse Stanbridge, Amina Zareh and Scarlett Bales. Each of the dancers contributes their individuality and strength to the dance company. DDC applies pressure to the boundaries of Middle Eastern dance and attempts to bring a more theatrical, artistic side to this ancient, highly-skilled, art form. Deshret keeps its roots grounded in the traditional technique and movements of Middle Eastern and Tribal Fusion dance and then morphs them into something new and different. Creating a fusion. Wandering between darkness and light…
www.ariellah.com
www.deshretdance.com
~ Bad Unkl Sista ~
Bad Unkl Sista is an art ensemble that produces site-specific durational performances combining choreography, music, costuming, installation, and theatre. Anastazia Louise, artistic director, unites the emotional pathways of both outer and inner landscapes through movement and expression. Gala Aranaga, music director, builds sonic architectures where listeners are invited to navigate and explore. Together, they seek to provoke and inspire audiences, changing how witnesses relate to the performers, to the world, and to themselves.
Photo by RJ Muna - www.rjmuna.com.com
~ Monastic ~
For ShadowDance 2019, Anthony Jones returns to performance art and becomes the MONASTIC. Evoking the depths of passion and faith, MONASTIC bleeds together a profound and haunting arrangement of Oriental, Classical, European Folk, and Middle Eastern instrumentation and vocal. The presentation has been developed from Anthony's own experiences in monasteries, ashrams, temples, and other spiritual retreats. Though the project has been placed to rest, as Anthony continues his solo works and collaborative performances with Monica Richards, ShadowDance is where you may still discover this musical mysticism, for one night.
~ DJ Owen ~
If you spend time at Gothic clubs, you have probably seen Owen around. He has been a staple in the American Gothic Scene for decades from coast to coast. Currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area, his unique way of bringing joy to a dancefloor can be experienced regularly at multiple clubs across Northern California, from The Cat Club in San Francisco, to The Box in Santa Cruz, to Necromancy in Sacramento, and beyond, as well as doing residencies in other states and touring regularly. Owen can also be enjoyed weekly on The Hanging Garden Radio Show, which is heard throughout Northern California or anywhere in the world through the internet. A love of, and devotion to, music has manifested in many forms over Owen's lifetime. Aside form being a trained classical musician in his own right, Owen has spun professionally in such divergent musical genres as Swing, 80's, Indie, Lounge, Top 40, and Punk. Even in the Goth/Industrial realm, he is unusually diverse, spinning anything from Ethereal, to Aggrotech & EBM, to Deathrock, to 80's & 90's Industrial, current & classic Post-Punk, and much more. He simply has a passion for music, itself, and sharing the feeling of experiencing its transcendence with others. This is why he is so eager to take and play as many requests as possible from the crowd. A club is a place to feel good. The Gothic Scene is something truly special. It is more than a place to go out; it is a genuine community. This is what draws many people it be part of it and this is why many of those people continue to be with it well after their peers in age have lost interest in going to clubs. When not behind the DJ tables, you will often find Owen loving this community. Chances are good he is probably dancing on the floor or conversing with everyone. His personal contributions include creating clubs and festivals, playing benefits whenever possible, and even constructing group trips and tours. When you see Owen around, say hello, make musical requests, and most of all, have a great time. After all, we're among friends and the joy of music. That's a good enough reason to celebrate any night!
~ Kandroma & Jill Tracy ~
Iris is a longtime guest to Shadowdance, first appearing in 2010. One half of the Kandroma collaboration, they have also been a member of The Wandering Marionettes and Freakshow Deluxe. Iris has performed at the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball, was recruited to feature in a series of music videos by Grammy award-winning artist Ben Moody, and has suspended on hooks for CoRE, Wolf and Sheep, Aesthetic Meat Front, and Jane’s Addiction. They traverse the blade’s edge, presenting beauty in pain, with a practice in fire, needles, feathers and rope. Each step on stage is opportunity to extend ritual, and rite, to those who bear witness.
Jill Tracy is a pianist, singer, storyteller, and "musical évocateur,” who has garnered multiple awards and a passionate following for her haunting, cinematic music, old-world glamour—and curious passion for strange tales.
Hailed by LA Weekly as ‘“the cult darling of the Underworld,” Jill Tracy’s seductive, shadowy sounds have become synonymous with the beautiful dark— featured on Showtime’s DEXTER, CBS-TV NCIS; and movies like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Other Madnesses. San Francisco Chronicle has deemed her “the femme fatale for the thinking man.” She has collaborated and performed with music legends such as Peter Murphy (Bauhaus,) Steven Severin (Siouxsie and the Banshees,) David J (Bauhaus,) Jello Biafra, Nina Hagen, Lydia Lunch, and famed author Lemony Snicket.
With her affinity for odd history, magick, and unexpected inspirations, she is known for traveling to unusual locales to research and compose. She has conjured music in decrepit gardens, cemeteries, murderous mansions, abandoned asylums, ancient redwoods, and haunted castles.
Utilizing the energy, frequency, resonant tones, and emotion of an environment to uncover hidden music, she call these spontaneous sessions “The Sonic Séance.” Her upcoming album “The Secret Music of Lily Dale” reveals her singular piano music channeled at night inside the historical 1883 séance auditorium in mysterious Lily Dale, the famed private town of mediums and Spiritualists in upstate New York—an authentic, never-before-heard sonic journey into this strange, little town that talks to the dead.
(Photos by RJ Muna and David Allen)
~ Anna Yanushkevich ~
Anna Yanushkevich has been filling community theatres and performing at large events for the better part of a decade. Combining ballet, aerial, contortion and visual arts, Anna asks her audience to seek where they sit in their seat on the spectrum between the strange beauty in nature and the macabre. In 2015 the San Diego Fringe Festival designated a special category for Anna, presenting her with the “Twisted Fringe Award” for Nocturnicon, a dive into the way we handle mental illness and the human body before and after death. In addition, Anna works as a veterinary technician and teaches beginner to advanced aerial arts and movement. She is committed to helping the world stay strong and bendy.
~ Anandha Ray, MA, MA, DTR ~
Rev. Priestess Anandha Ray, MA, MA, DTR has over 30 years international experience as a master teacher, choreographer and artistic director of Moving Arts Dance, and currently Quimera Tribe Ritual Dance. She served as Cultural Ambassador with US Embassies of Belarus and Poland on annual tours called “Dance Without Borders”, innovated a form of dance inquiry and performance called Shamanic Fusion Dance® (classes/ceremonies/performances), and in her varied career has served as a Dance Therapist, Assistant Professor and is a Pipe Carrier of indigenous dance ceremonies. She is a WisdomKeeper (WisdomVR.org 2019) and an internationally celebrated, multiple award-winning choreographer and humanitarian including selection as a young choreographer for the Martha Graham company (1982). For her contributions in dance she has been inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame, as an Honorary Kentucky Colonel, and received commendations from the U.S. Senate, California Assembly, National College Dance Festival honorary performances at the Kennedy Center (1986, 2016), Washington DC, and has been named a visionary in the arts (Diablo Magazine 2001, 2006).
~ Vanessa Messeguer ~
Vanessa Messeguer is a Costarican dancer, she studied ballet since 4 years old, modern dance since 9 years old, and she has more than 30 years of experience in dance. Vanessa found Belly Dance 13 years ago and fell in love with Tribal dance. She is the first ITS UNMATA teacher in Central American, and is the promotor for the Festival de la Luna and Costa Rica tribal retreats. She takes classes with several tribal and belly dancer teachers. Her teachers include: Amy Sigil, Ariellah, Serta Huertas, Estelle Sagul, Zoe Jakes, Kami Little, Deb Rubin, Kristin Adams, among others.
~ DJ Melting Girl ~
There is beauty in darkness. In darkness we find love and tragedy. Through music we tell our stories. DJ Melting Girl has been telling stories through the music she spins for over 20 years. She is a resident DJ at Death Guild, the longest running weekly Goth/Industrial club in the United States. She was co-founder of Dark Shadows which ran for 7 years and has DJ’d at a long list of other clubs in San Francisco. In 2019 she started a new night with longtime partner Daniel Skellington called Nightshift which focuses on the new music of the scene. She is also a member of Anthony Jones’ live band. A project she treasures and has allowed her to explore a new type of musical creativity.
Once again, she returns to the darkness of ShadowDance for another inspiring year of art, dance and performance.
~ Chalala ~
Chalala (Ophelia Coeur de Noir & Charlie Duneaux) have been performing together since 2013. Between them they share skills from ballet to bellydance, and cancan to klowning. You can find them dancing with the Trashkan Marchink Band, frolicking with the 3 Tiny Klowns, and wherever fine whiskies are served.
~ Shadow Circus Creature Theatre ~
~ Dave Haas Baroque ~
Dave Haaz-Baroque is the creator of San Francisco puppetry troupe Shadow Circus Creature Theatre. His puppets have been featured in such productions as Kat Robichaud's Misfit Cabaret, The Edwardian Ball, the New Conservatory Theatre Center and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live.
~ Julia Jerome ~
Julia Jerome has been a Circus Artist for the last decade and works as an aerialist, fire artist, and stilt walker. She has performed internationally with a number of companies including Boston Circus Guild, Imagine Circus, Nimble Arts and Acro Arts and attended New England Center for Circus Arts’ professional training programs. Her favorite inspirations come from the macabre and bizarre and she enjoys every opportunity to create a juxtaposition of grace and elegance with the disjointed and strange.
Master of Ceremonies
~ Loren the Black ~
Returning in his beloved role as Master of Ceremonies, and revelling to an unusual extent as a performer, Loren the Black takes the stage for his sixth ShadowDance. Not only does Year 13 hold immense numerological significance for him, as will be spoken of from the Dark Heart, but deeply meaningful acts of co-operative creation and spiritual reverence. Also: amphibious wordplay. Having just completed an eighth Holiday Season as greeter/photo-vamp at the bow of the USS Nightmare, a Depression-era dredge-turned-Haunt, LtB continues to Emcee annually for Zahara's Tangled Web's Carnival Noir hafla in his corporeal anchor of Cincinnati. "Normal" occupation finds him portraying a time-travel technician whilst assisting patrons to escape various temporal repair scenarious in time, space, and recently Virtual Reality. eks each year, with several thousand people, in front of the camera on a boat. In fangs.
VENDORS
~ Eyescream ~
Jewelry to inspire your muse...
Artist Ruby Smith creates ornate totem adornments, implementing various techniques and mediums. She crafts them in moonlight, while most of the world sleeps, etched with metal scribe, hand stamped esoteric sigils in brass & copper, talisman sculpted in molten metal, art painted with delicate bristles, works torched in flame, or encased in glass like surfaces, encrusted fossils and minerals, embellished with intricate wires, imbued with Vintage remnants and found objects of past lives, antiqued in dark patinas, formed with calloused fingers, and sent out into the world with undying love. Custom and one of a kind Witchy Gothic Ritual Jewelry. Specializing in Quartz & Stone Talisman from the 'Sorcery Collection', Snake Vertebrae Earrings, Eyes, Bats, Moons, Skulls, Artifacts Macabre, & other dark delights.
Find the artist at Eyescream 3816 Telegraph Ave. Oakland Ca. Please check the website 'Location/Hours' link for current Shop Open Dates (& also open by appointment). Eyescream Jewelry Eyescream Jewelry on Instagram
~ Eidol ~
Eidol takes design cues from the early 20th century and combines machine stitching with traditional French leathercrafting techniques to create unique, beautiful, durable and practical accessories for living in the 21st century. Maria Curran has worked with leather for almost 20 years. As an indie designer, she loves the tactile problem solving and endless opportunities to learn that presents itself in leathercraft.
Eidol
~ Flux MetalWear ~
Flux MetalWear is created for the Dreamers, the Believers, the Warriors. For those whose heart thrives in doing what they can to make the world a better place, and who do it with style. For those who know how strong they are, how powerful, who stand for what they believe in, who get back up when life knocks them down - and who want to look damn good doing it. Flux MetalWear is created For You.
Flux MetalWear
~ Tears of My Enemies ~
Bio not available yet.
~ PETRUSHKA Couture ~
PETRUSHKA Couture Accessories. Making magical clothing and accessories since 1965. With beginnings at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire and Dickens Fair, her work consists of one of a kind treasures informed by historical dress, national costumes from Eastern Europe and around the world, and Haute Couture. Her work has been collected by celebrities and exquisite women of all walks of life. She was named “One of the 90 people to watch in the ‘90’s” by the San Francisco Chronicle.
She shows at New York Fashion Week twice a year to the trade. Her work is available at a few fine stores across the country.
~ Frescura ~
Monster make-up and masks, music, religious art, and icons.
Frescura’s art has been exhibited throughout the East Bay Area and North Bay, LA, Pittsburgh, Arizona, and Orlando.
FINE ARTS
~ Steven Russell Black ~
Steven Russell Black is a Painter with an obsessive compulsion to champion the odd, fringe, or otherwise unappreciated.
STAGE CREW
~ Janelle Slavik ~
After performing in theatre, music and dance productions for 25 years, Janelle moved to stage production and management. As stage manager of Vaue De Vire, Soiled Dove, Edwardian Ball, Conjure and Requiem Dance Festival for the past several years, as well as heading stage production of Shadowdance last year, she enjoys being challenged in new and unusual ways. She looks forward to a stunning and successful Shadowdance this year.
