CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Ellie Kurttz
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City/Place:
London
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Country:
United Kingdom
Life
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Bio:
I love Theatre, Dance, Photography and People…. So I feel very fortunate to be able to combine my passions with my work.
I graduated with distinction from Central St Martins School of Art and Design in Art Photography in 2002 and since then I have worked with leading British theatre and dance companies including The Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Young Vic, Royal Opera House, Almeida Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Rambert Dance Company amongst others.
As a former ballerina I grew up in theatres and on stage, moving from being on stage to photographing shows was a very natural transition in my life. Theatres and stages have always been a familiar place where I feel comfortable. I have a strong connection and understanding of movement, which clients say is visible in my stage photography. My performing arts and portrait images are dynamic and according to my clients they display my genuine passion for the arts.
My photographs have appeared in Vogue, the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian, the Independent and Time Out (London) and many other publications. I have participated in more than 40 exhibitions, including Shooting Shakespeare produced by the V&A and Globe to Globe at the Shakespeare’s Globe.
In 2006 I was made the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Artist-in-Residence and I have documented their work for more than a decade.
In 2011, Royal Mail issued 10 stamps commemorating the RSC 50th anniversary. My work featured on 4 of the 10 stamps.
2014 saw the opening of my first solo exhibition Shakespeare in Brazil. Launched at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil (CCBB), Shakespeare toured Brazil for 5 weeks, visiting Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia. More than 18,000 visitors went to the exhibition. My book Shakespeare by Ellie Kurttz was published the same year.
In 2015, I became an Ambassador of Spectaculu, a unique arts education school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I am delighted to be associated with a social enterprise that supports young marginalised people to reach their artistic potential.
In 2016 my exhibition Shakespeare, opened at the Brazilian British Centre in Sao Paulo as the official opening of Shakespeare Lives celebrations.
In 2018, after a wonderful 4 years working with 1418NOW following the Tower of London Poppies around Great Britain, creating a visual diary of the Poppies tour. My exhibition Poppies Reflections opened at the Imperial War Museum in October that year.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Current and past clients include:
ACASAGringoCardia
AKA
Almeida Theatre
Birmingham REP
Bristol Old Vic
Curve Theatre
Eleanor Lloyd Productions
Elliott & Harper Productions
Hampstead Theatre
Headlong
Historic Royal Palaces
Young Vic
Lift Festival
Little Angel
Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Theatres
Marlowe Theatre
National Theatre
National Youth Theatre
Orange Tree Theatre
PPP (People’s Palace Projects)
The Print Room
The Corner Shop
Rambert Dance Company
Royal Opera House
The Royal Shakespeare Company
The Times
Sadlers Wells
Shakespeare’s Globe
Sydney Theatre Company
Soho Theatre
Sonia Friedman Productions
Westminster Abbey
WIA (Women in Architecture)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
This technological matrix originating in Bahia, Brazil and positioning creators around the world within reach of each other and the entire planet is able to do so because it is small-world (see Wolfram above). Bahia itself, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history, refuge for Lusitanian Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a sociocultural matrix comprised of these three peoples and more, is small-world. Human society, the billions of us, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX