Ordinary / Extraordinary

Dan Rothenberg is a Philadelphia-based director and creator of experimental performance. A founding member and co-artistic director of the Pig Iron Theatre Company, Dan has directed almost all of Pig Iron’s original performance works, including POET IN NEW YORK, GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS, LOVE UNPUNISHED, ISABELLA, THE LUCIA JOYCE CABARET, and the OBIE Award-winning productions CHEKHOV LIZARDBRAIN and HELL MEETS HENRY HALFWAY. Pig Iron has been nominated for over 35 Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater in Philadelphia and received 4 Barrymore Awards in Original Music, Music Direction, Costume Design, and Outstanding Choreography for their 2011 production of TWELFTH NIGHT. The company has toured to theaters and festivals in Europe, South America, and the United States. The company has participated in creative residencies at the Public Theater, Dance Theatre Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse, Drexel University, Playmakers Rep, Swarthmore College, and at Toni Morrison’s Atelier Program at Princeton University. In 2010, Dan directed the highly critically acclaimed English-language premiere of Toshiki Okada’s ENJOY for Play Company in New York (“…pitch-perfect direction…”).With Pig Iron, Dan co-directed Shut Eye with legendary theater director Joseph Chaikin and in 2005, he directed Pay Up, a 30-person site-specific installation about buying and selling for the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival; it was later presented at Montclair State University. Dan teaches physical theater, both for Pig Iron and at Princeton University. Other projects include creation of audio works to accompany the paintings of Alexandra Grant at MOCA in Los Angeles and ongoing collaborations with Headlong Dance Theatre, the alt-comedy group The Berzerker Residence, and Stockholm’s music-performance group Teater Slava. Dan is the recipient of a Barrymore Award for Choreography (1997); a Pew Fellowship in Performance Art (2002); a United States Artists Knight Fellowship (2010); and an Independence Fellowship (2005). Film: Music Video for Philadelphia-based rock band GANG. In 2011 Dan received a MAP Fund Grant to support ZERO COST HOUSE, a new work by Pig Iron in collaboration with Japanese playwright and director Toshiki Okada. ZERO COST HOUSE had its premiere in Fall 2012 at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Yuki Ellias is a performer, teacher, movement director & filmmaker. As an actress she has performed in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Italy and India. She played Hermia in the highly acclaimed production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' dir by Tim Supple at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Apon Avon and the Roundhouse London. She was the Movement Director for UK’s leading opera company Opera North on their production of Mozart’s Magic Flute. The show toured major UK cities and venues. She trained in movement-based theatre from the Jacques Lecoq School of Theatre in Paris and is a trained pedagogue from the London International School of Performing Arts.  Her debut feature film as co writer and actress won an Audience Choice Award at the Anchorage International Film Festival and the Royal Reel Award at the Canada International Film Festival. She is currently working on a documentary.