WILLARD MORGAN - CREATOR & WRITER
Willard Morgan is a New York performance artist, actor and filmmaker. Creating visually striking personas for the stage with word, music and performance, he also produces provocative music videos and films that explore his inner obsessions, as well as the trends and issues of the day. Morgan has a long history with Cuba, having participated in the Havana International Jazz Festival (2002), the International Festival of The New Latin American Cinema, and as a founding member of Gibara’s Festival de Cine Pobre in 2003, 2005 and 2016. In April 2016, he performed at Havana’s Gallery Taller Gorria segments of his work-in-progress, Vestiphobia.
In 2005, Morgan founded Ideal Glass, an art studio located in the heart of the East Village. His team creates multimedia live performance and video in collaboration with national and international guest artists. Front man of Ideal Orkestra, a kinetic international band with a highly theatrical bent, Morgan created the solo rock shows Saint Hollywood based on the lives of the denizens of the Boulevard, and Jelvis (the Jewish Elvis), a comedy parody act performed at New York City venues (B.B. King’s, The Highline, The Cutting Room), in Los Angeles (Genghis Cohen, The Comedy Store, M Bar, and The Three of Clubs) and in Paris (La Scala and Regine’s). His latest production, Vestiphobia, was developed at fringe fashion festivals internationally. Morgan is Vestiphobia’s Executive Producer and performer.
STEVE FAGIN - DIRECTOR
Steve Fagin is an American artist and former professor of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He has produced a series of feature length videos including The Amazing Voyage of Gustave Flaubert and Raymond Roussel, The Machine That Killed Bad People and TropiCola (the latter produced in collaboration with some of the most important theatre actors and producers in Havana.)
These films have been featured prominently at museums, international film festivals, art biennials and have been screened on Bravo International in Latin America, Canal + in Europe and PBS in the United States. His work has had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and is the subject of a book from Duke University Press, "Talkin’ With Your Mouth Full": Conversations with the Videos of Steve Fagin. The work has been presented in the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in many contexts including both of their summary shows of the essential art of the twentieth century.
From 2005-2009 he worked as Creative Consultant for the haudenschild Garage and Commissioning Editor of the hG, Spare Parts project. The Last Book, an hG, Spare Parts project, was conceived and directed by him. He also completed a series of “smart phone pieces”, both as Commissioning Editor and as one of the artists for LACMA. Currently Fagin is Vestiphobia Cuba Director.
UTA BEKAIA - ART DIRECTOR & COSTUME DESIGNER
Uta Bekaia is a New York based multimedia artist born in Tbilisi (Georgia). He graduated from Mtsire Akademia as industrial designer and debuted with his sculptural performance at Tbilisi’s AMA (Avant-Guard Fashion Assembly) and Moscow. He moved to New York in 1998 and has since been collaborating on more than 200 theater and movie projects as an art director and costume designer. Bekaia is currently a resident artist and curator at Ideal Glass Studio where he creates wearable sculptures for performances and multimedia installations, presented in many art fairs and fashion weeks in New York (US), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Toronto (Canada), Paris (France), Maastricht (Holland), Brighton (UK) and Berlin (Germany). His latest projects participated in the Istanbul 14th. Biennal, Kiyiv 2nd. Biennal and Tbilisi City Parade “Bericaoba.” His creations were reviewed in The Village Voice, Time Out New York and The Wall Street Journal. Bekaia is currently Vestiphobia’s Art Director.
GRETTEL CARBó- PRODUCER, PUBLIC RELATIONS, WEB DESIGNER
Grettel Carbó, a professional international model, started an Architecture career in the Faculty of Architecture (CUJAE) in Havana, and graduated later from Florida Atlantic University. Her skills as a talent, project manager and coordinator has been applied within the years in the production of publicity, marketing, and coordination in Europe, Havana, New York, and Miami. She has also been the promotion designer for non-profits organizations and represented them in some United Nation panels in New York.
Carbó has also been involved in many cultural activities; one of her recent works was in Havana, in Fabrica de Arte Cubano (FAC) promoting and exhibiting the use of aesthetic renewable energy and organic designs inserted in an urban context and interiors.
Currently she is creating a virtual gallery in order to promote the exchange between Havana – New York artists. To follow up with this transnational goal, and as a result of her positive experience with FAC and her long history with the fashion industry, Carbó proposed Vestiphobia’s performance to this cutting edge venue. Carbó serves currently as Vestiphobia Cuba Producer.
BERTA JOTTAR - PRODUCER, CURATOR, DOCUMENTARIAN
Berta Jottar is an interdisciplinary artist-scholar, she received her PhD at Tisch/NYU in the Department of Performance Studies with her dissertation Rumba In Exile: The Aesthetics of Resistance about Afro-Cuban rumba in Central Park during the Giuliani administration in New York. As a member of the art collectives Border Arts Workshop/Taller de arte fronterizo, and Las Comadres, she has exhibited her video installations in Artist Space and Art in General, both in New York City, Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco, the Venice Biennial. As a filmmaker, she has participated in festivals at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum, as well as other Academic and Performance related Congresses in Toronto, Bogota, Tijuana, Los Angeles, La Havana. Her scholarly work focuses on the Cuban Diaspora and has been published in several academic journals (Latin American Music Review, Centro Journal for Puerto Rican Studies, Liminalities, A Journal of Performance Studies), and in edited books like Performing the US Latin@ Borderlands and Talkin’ With Your Mouth Full: Conversations with the Videos of Steve Fagin. Jottar has developed several projects related to music and film in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. Jottar is currently Vestiphobia Cuba Producer.
MARIE VAN EERSEL - PRODUCTION COORDINATOR, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Marie van Eersel is a French producer based in New-York. She earned a BA in Art History and English before moving to New York. After working at Pierogi Gallery for a year, she pursued the Arts Administration master program at Sotheby's Institute of Art where she focused on the correlation between culture and development, and has presented studies on the Istanbul Biennial and its impact on the Turkish cultural landscape.
Inspired by stories presented in unconventional formats, Marie now freelances producing films, experimental video, and performance art pieces. She has presented many multi-disciplinary performances, often collaborating with the New-York Atelier Ideal Glass.
NICHOLAS MOTYKA - CINEMATOGRAPHER, EDITOR
Nicholas is a New York based, American independent filmmaker. Over the last four years, he has conceptualized, directed, edited, produced and shot over fifty three short documentaries and short narrative based films as well as experimental videos and music videos. Through the SUNY Purchase Film Conservatory he collaborated with a large group of actors and fellow filmmakers, working almost every angle of a film production.
Now out and about, exploring the modern world, Nicholas has continued to build on his particular style of filmmaking with the Ideal Glass Collective. Since he began at Ideal Glass in August of 2015, he has already worked with the collective to create a number of promotional videos, music videos and short films, including the Vestiphobia short film.
JESSIE STEAD - VIDEO EDITOR
Jessie Stead (NY, Bard MFA ’07) works in overlapping patterns of cinema, installation, music, collaboration and other forms of cross-disciplined art. Posing as a film director in an on-going IRL performance piece, her motion-pictures have been screened internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include 247365 (NY), and Jan Kaps (Cologne). Stead is the experimental percussionist in the art-band #hariboner. She serves currently as Vestiphobia Cuba video editor.
YOELVIS LOBAINA - PRODUCTION COORDINATOR / CUBA
Yoelvis is a Cuban producer and actor based in Havana, Cuba. He is currently working at Moverso Films, producing more than twenty videos clips for national and foreign artists including Hayla, Descemer Bueno, Orishas, and Spanish Beatriz Luengo. As an actor he has worked in a variety of films and theater plays in Havana with well-known artist and directors.
FASHION DESIGNERS
FABRICA DE ARTE CUBANO
www.fac.cu
EL CENTRAL PRODUCCIONES | CUBA
www.elcentralproducciones.com
LA RUEDA PRODUCCIONES | CUBA
www.laruedaproducciones.com