ANDY MEYERSON
DRUMMER
Andy Meyerson is a drummer and percussionist based in San Francisco, California. He is the artistic director, co-founder, and percussionist of The Living Earth Show, one of the premier experimental classical ensembles in the United States.
He is also the drummer and co-founder of queer nü metal collective COMMANDO, music director of renegade dance company Post:ballet, frequent drummer for Russian feminist protest and performance art group Pussy Riot, the artistic director and CEO of uncompromising experimental chamber music record label Earthy Records, and a renowned solo artist.
Meyerson has released two solo percussion recordings: My Side of the Story, a collection of percussion solos written for him by Adrian Knight, Jude Traxler, Brendon Randall-Myers, Samuel Adams, and Danny Clay on slashsound recordings, and Extra Time, an album of percussion solos written for him by Sarah Hennies on Hasana Editions.
He is an endorsing artist for Spaun Drums, Innovative Percussion, and Marimba One.
TRAVIS ANDREWS
GUITARS
Travis Andrews is the co-founder, executive director, and electric guitarist of The Living Earth
Show. In that capacity, Andrews’ performances have been praised as “mind-blowing” and “a vanguard effort of new chamber music” by the San Francisco Examiner and “emotional, transcendent, and at times bursting with raw post-rock power” by the Charleston City Paper. In his work, he strives to use the tools of classical and contemporary music to foreground voices and perspectives often marginalized by the tradition and its presentation.
Highly in demand as a solo artist, Andrews has been a featured soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Eco Ensemble, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. He has performed with John Doe of X, Bryce Dessner of The National, Terry Riley, and the Kronos Quartet. A musical omnivore, Andrews also performs with avant-thrash trio Freighter, chambercore band miRthkon, and queer nü metal band COMMANDO.
Andrews has authored articles and books for String Letter Publishing and has been an artist in residence at universities and conservatories around the country. He is an endorsing artist for Fishman Transducers.
SAMUEL ADAMS
COMPOSER
Samuels Adams is an American composer whose music weaves acoustic and digital sounds into “mesmerizing” (New York Times) orchestrations. Sought after by orchestras and contemporary ensemble alike, he has received commissions from a broad range of organizations including the San Francisco Symphony, Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and Spektral Quartet, and has collaborated with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Robertson, and Michael Tilson Thomas, violinists Anthony Marwood, Jennifer Koh, and Karen Gomyo, and pianists Emanuel Ax, Sarah Cahill, David Fung, and Joyce Yang.
The 2023/24 season featured several world premieres, including Eden Interstates, a work for organ and ensemble commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for organist James McVinnie. A new work for the Australian Chamber Orchestra — Adams’ third for the group — premiered as part of the 2024 Adelaide Festival at the Ukaria Cultural Centre in Mount Barker, Australia. In September 2024, violinist Joe Puglia premiered Adams’ The Last Sound of Venice at the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht and toured the work throughout the Netherlands. Adams’ second recording, Current, featuring performances by violinist Karen Gomyo, pianist Conor Hanick, and the Spektral Quartet, was released on Other Minds Records.
Adams was Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2018 and in the 2021/22 season was composer in residence with Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has held residencies at Civitella Ranieri (Umbria, Italy), Djerassi Resident Artists Program (California), Ucross (Wyoming), and Visby International Centre for Composers (Gotland, Sweden). He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and lives and works in Seattle.
VANESSA THIESSEN
CHOREOGRAPHER/CO-DIRECTOR
Vanessa Thiessen is a choreographer, artistic collaborator, and educator. Resident choreographer for Post:ballet from 2017 to 2021, her works include La Folia, Hades and Persephone, and Junction, as well as co-choreographed works with Robin Dekkers including Lavender Country (nominated for Best Dance Performance 2019 by SF Classical Voice), Incandescent Body, From Now On (Dance Theater of San Francisco), and Dear Light Along the Path to Nothingness (Grand Rapids Ballet). From 2013 to 2015, Thiessen worked alongside ODC/Dance Co-Director KT Nelson, generating choreography for Sacramento Ballet, Owen/Cox Dance, RAWdance, and for Chris Mason Johnson’s dance film From the Beginning. In 2018, she created From the Well of Echoes for Berkeley Ballet Theater in collaboration with the Berkeley Symphony, and in 2019, she created Left for BodyVox JAG in collaboration with the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra. Thiessen danced professionally with Post:ballet, Skinner/Kirk, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, Project B., ODC/Dance (where she was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for her performance in They’ve Lost Their Footing), Smuin Ballet, and Oregon Ballet Theatre.
BENJAMIN TARQUIN
CINEMATOGRAPHER/VIDEO DIRECTOR/CO-DIRECTOR
Benjamin Tarquin is an international videographer, photographer, and editor at the intersection of the classical arts, documentary, and street dance. Based part of the year in Japan and part of the year in his hometown of Oakland, California, Tarquin uses visual and electronic media to synthesize movement, light, and acoustics into new and evocative artistic expression.
Tarquin grew up to the sounds of the Oakland underground before studying architecture at La Villette in Paris. His experience in design led him over the last decade to help build YAK Films into an internationally acclaimed video production company capturing new forms of street dance emerging from the United States, Europe, and Asia. Several viral videos brought this youth-led artistic and political content to the cultural mainstream, giving inner-city youth a powerful and constructive outlet and helping to establish an international street dance scene. In this capacity, Tarquin collaborated with high-profile artists like Lil Buck and Les Twins on projects for clients like Sony, Red Bull, Adidas, Yonex ,and Apple. YAKfilms has over a million subscribers on YouTube.
His more recent work under Yabe Media expands beyond street dance to produce music videos, short films, and commercials. He has collaborated with Post:ballet since 2019 on projects including Waltz of the Snowflakes, Playing Changes, and Swan Lake, bringing a fresh perspective to ballet.
ROBIN DEKKERS
CO-DIRECTOR
Robbin Dekkers is dedicated to inspiring artists and audiences with their passion for movement and collaboration. Named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine and celebrated for their direction of multi-disciplinary works that are “inventive, focused, sophisticated, and anything but risk averse” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Dekkers is also artistic director of Berkeley Ballet Theater, the official school of Post:ballet.
Dekkers danced professionally with Ballet Arizona, ODC/Dance, Company C Contemporary Ballet, and Diablo Ballet, where they were nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Performance, Individual, in 2013. They danced leading roles in works by Georg Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, José Límon, KT Nelson, Val Caniparoli, Lar Lubovitch, Jodie Gates, Trey McIntyre, Dominic Walsh, Julia Adam, and Paul Taylor. Dekkers’ choreography has been presented at Jacob’s Pillow, SF International Arts Festival, Tanzsommer Festival, Ballet Builders Showcase, Against the Grain Festival, and WestWave Dance Festival. Commissions include SF Dance Film Festival, AXIS Dance Company, Kansas City Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, sjDANCEco, Smuin Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet (with co-choreographer Vanessa Thiessen), and Diablo Ballet, where they were resident choreographer from 2013 to 2018. They are currently director of choreography for Art Haus, a performance collective that has presented large-scale collaborations in Black Rock City during Burning Man, including Dekkers’ Firebird, Rite of Spring, Noble Beast, and We, Human.
Dekkers co-choreographed the season-finale dance scene for Starz network’s Blindspotting with Lil Buck and Jon Boogz, performing in the scene with these artists and several Post:ballet dancers. Dekkers has created new works for the dance departments at Stanford University, Southern Methodist University, San Jose State University, and Virginia Commonwealth University, and regularly teaches company classes for AXIS Dance Company, Smuin Ballet, LINES Ballet, and ODC/Dance. Dekkers also holds a degree in business from Rio Salado College.
CREATIVE TEAM
Costume Design: Christian Squires
Costume Construction: Jan Berletti, Christopher Dunn, Isabelle Burgess-Corkins
Makeup Design and Production Assistance: Mia J. Chong
Original Lighting Design: David Robertson
Sound Consultant: Mark Grey
SpaceMap Go Consultants: Steve Ellison and Leonard Blanche, Meyer Sound