Nathan Fuhr (Berlin/Dakar) lets music and dance resonate as a single art based on pulse and breath. He is a transdisciplinary conductor whose precocity and creative instincts eventually led to a rejection of academic structures and penguin suits in favour of a plurality of artistic influences. He holds orchestral conducting degrees from the conservatories of Cincinnati and Amsterdam, dance diplomas from the Amsterdam School for New Dance Development and L'Ecole des Sables, Senegal, and draws influence from several workshops with Meredith Monk.
Concurrent to more than a decade of experience conducting classical and modern music ensembles to critical acclaim in New York and then Europe, and furthermore directing John Zorn's legendary game-piece of social alchemy and improvisation Cobra, Nathan created the ensemble Collision Palace in Amsterdam in 2002, specialising in the development of group improvisation languages and regularly collaboration with dance. This ensemble performed in the Holland Festival with Fred Frith, premiered scores by Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth and Robert Ashley, and was invited by the Steve Reich in The Hague Festival to realise a performance of the minimalist-cum-maximalist classic Coming Together, in which Nathan created a system of conducting combining physical direction and vocal text performance. In the same period a music theatre collaboration with composer Alison Isadora spawned his creation of a conducting technique using the energetic language of Butoh dance.

Currently, Nathan is the founding flow sculptor of the Demonshaker drumset ensemble- a project which is the fruit and urban occidental recontextualisation of his research, experience, and gradual demystification of traditional trance music and ritual dance practices in nonindividualised societies of Morocco, Egypt and Senegal. This path is born of an artistic interest in collective holistic synergies and empirical belief in the basic universal healing potential of the physicality of sound, organic rhythm and human synergy– excluding no stylistic or cultural background. Demonshaker's motivations in performance offerings are no less than transcendental– a humble utopian celebration of coming together and of life... Its most recent splashes have been at Prisma Forum Mexico and Tanznacht Festival Berlin; its American homecoming debut is set for California next year.

Nathan was introduced to ImPulsTanz after leading workshops for Meg Stuart in Berlin in 2005 (rhythm & trance) and Brussels in 2007 (group improvisation language research). As a result of his workshops, his choreographic scores and improvisation languages have been performed by Damaged Goods at Pact Zollverein Essen, student ensembles under his direction at Festspielhaus Hellerau Rhythmic Institute Dresden, European Dance Development Center Arnhem, Centre National de la Danse Paris, Institute Jacques Dalcroze Geneva, Mobile Academy Berlin, Antonia Baehr, a.o. He has led dancers in impromptu sessions as a guest at Ponderosa Dance Festival and Hu.Z TanzplanBerlin, a.o. He has worked as a rhythm coach and advisor for several independent choreographers in Amsterdam and as a vocal coach for Paul Gazzola in Berlin, as per his specialisation in the performance practice of Robert Ashley. At the invitation of certain girlfriends choreographers, Nathan has also worked as a dancer/performer. Recently he was framed as an actor by a major Estonian state theatre for the European Culture Capital 2011. In Dakar he plays with Baaba Maal's band, dances sabar, and learns simplicity. He practices Vipassana meditation, pranayama, Tai Chi, and holds surfboards and passports in the USA and Senegal. He has cherished ImPulsTanz as a first-class confluence joint since 2007 and is happy to return and reciprocate.
www.urbanrituals.org