Jason Akira Somma

Jason Akira Somma is a practicing director, photographer, and choreographer based in New York City. Merging his practice as a visual artist and choreographer he experiments with transcending dance from the ephemeral state on stage to the walls of galleries. His photography and film work have been featured in The New Museum (NYC), The Guggenheim (NYC), The Deitch Project (SoHo), P.S. 1 (MoMA), Robert Altman Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, Va.), and the Anderson Gallery (Richmond, Virginia). Jason is the first American to receive the Rolex Arts Initiative for Dance, Jason has been working under the mentorship of Jiri Kylian over the past 4 years. His photographic work has been featured in numerous periodicals and magazines in the U.S. and Europe including the New York Times, Dance Magazine, Dance Europe Magazine, Village Voice, Time Out NY, and LA Times. His dance film work has been featured on the Sundance Channel, Independent Film Channel, PBS, NY Dance Film Festival, MTV Europe, American Dance Festival, Dance Theatre Workshop (NYC), Seoul (Korea) Film Festival, SPEX Magazine (Germany), Cinedans Festival (Amsterdam) and in the Performatica Festival (Mexico). Jason was commissioned by the BBC Bigscreens Moves festival and was a guest artist at the Center of Contemporary Art (CCA) in Glasgow. Recent live dance performances include "Frances Wessells, a Portrait of 91 Years" premiered at the Saddler Wells Theatre in London, and The Theatre national De Chaillot (Paris) where he also premiered the very first free-floating-interactive-film installation entitled the "Phosphene Variations." He has worked with the Lyon Opera Ballet, the William Forsythe Company, as well a featured artist at the Robert Wilson Watermill Foundation. Akira Somma has collaborated with Robert Wilson, choreographing and directing 5 short films that were shown at the Guggenheim Museum. When not performing or creating Jason has lectured internationally at universities on "Arts and Science/Performance and New Technology." He has had the unique opportunity to be a guest consultant for the University of Glasgow in the Neuroscience department for a research study focusing on how the perception of movement affects brain imaging and transcranial magnet stimulation.