Draft:Asa Horvitz

Asa Horvitz is a performance maker, musician/composer, and choreographer from the United States.

Biography
Asa Horvitz grew up in rural Northern California and is the son of guitarist Bill Horvitz. He studied music at Wesleyan University with Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxon, graduating with a BA in 2010, where he also studied performing arts and critical theory. He lived in New York City from 2011-2019, during which time he was active in the underground music and performing arts scene and studied psychoanalysis and various ways of working with dreams. He moved to Amsterdam to attend DASArts in 2019 and, since 2021 has presented his work internationally.

Artistic Work
Horvitz creates performances rooted in music and sound with strong choreographic and theatrical elements. According to his website and interviews. , he uses contrast and paradox to create conditions under which spectators can experience something like imagination but not quite.

His work is presented in performing arts festivals, theatres, museums, music venues, basements, and DIY spaces, such as Het HEM, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, deSingel, New Museum (NYC), Microscope Gallery, brutWien, Musiktheatretage Wien, SPRING Festival Utrecht, and many more. He writes a regular column in the Anarchist Review of Books.

THE SAVED NIGHT (2021-present)
THE SAVED NIGHT is a multi-year performance cycle exploring nonhuman presences (dreams & images, the dead & AI, animals).

A DREAM THAT BELONGS TO NO ONE (part 1)
In 2021-2022 Horvitz created the performance A DREAM THAT BELONGS TO NO ONE with an international group based in Amsterdam, including Venuri Perera, Nahuel Cano, Oneka von Schrader, Camille Verhaak, Maria Mavridou, and Keyna Nara. The 3+ hour-long choreography uses long wires tuned to the resonant frequencies of the performance space, dances, and the slow fade of natural light at sunset to create conditions for spectators to have a strong experience of their own inner images. A booklet of fragments on the history of dreams and images accompanied the performance.

GHOST (part 2)
In 2023, Horvitz created the performance GHOST, based on training a custom Natural Language Processing system on an archive of texts about death, loss, and mourning. These texts were set to music and became the basis of a music choreography along with Carmen Quill (Rothwell), Ariadne Randall, his uncle Wayne Horvitz, and a large ensemble of horn players. GHOST premiered at brut in Vienna in September 2023, and versions were later released a website and a vinyl record.

Collaborations
As a musician, Horvitz has collaborated with Carmen Quill (Rothwell), Wayne Horvitz, Ben Seretan, Pavel Zustiak, Anna Webber, Kalup Linzy, the band VALES, and many others. In the performing arts, he collaborated with Scott Gibbons and Romeo Castellucci on Go Down, Moses (Ubu Award 2015). In 2023, Horvitz composed the VR Opera Songs for a Passerby, directed by Celine Daemen, which won the grand prize at the 80th Venice Film Festival for Immersive Projects