Keyboard chic

Hullo. My name is Cassie Yukawa - a mongrel of mixed Japanese and English descent, dedicated to exploring my love for music, dance, New York City, film, art, sushi, yoga, architecture, moonlit conversations, shapes, photography, small creatures & COLOURS... The thing that drives my obsession are those invitations, or doorways that point to other realms of imagination & reality.... My main playground for experimenting with ideas is with my PIANO DUO partner Rosey Chan - my ultimate partner in crime, adventure and rhythm.

Rosey and I spend most of our waking moments finding new ways of experiencing the infinite mystery and ridiculously beautiful simplicity of 176 (which is no longer the bus route home) but the number of black and white keys our 20 fingers demand to use as our dance floor. I also collaborate with the incredible choreographer and conceptual artists Martina Seitl and Christer Lundahl, where you can find a secret room to experience our work at the current PUNCHDRUNK "Masque of the Red Death" theatre installation at the Battersea Arts Centre, London (a very special old town hall which houses & develops some of the most exciting theatre I've ever witnessed). Earlier in the year I performed with Martina & Christer with our interdisciplinary collective in Stockholm and will be returning for more next year - and in case you were wondering, I dance not only with my fingers, but use other visible and non-visible limbs when working with them (go see the work, it'll make sense ha!!).

Rosey, my PIANO DUO partner and I are always looking for new ways of weaving our finger dances together, and have a particular excitement for living composers. Always on the look out for new forms of shaking our knuckle-booty, we were breathtakingly stunned when Michael Nyman invited us to record a whole album with him, and we'll be going to the studio (Olympic in London) for the final tracks next month - where we may also include some bonus tracks on toy pianos (so I'll let you know when our debut album will be released on MN RECORDS next year)!! We have performed in KL, to the King of Malaysia, the Mozart Concerto for 2 Pianos at the launch of a brand new orchestra in London & Wales, performed in a sparkly light display at the George V in Paris and learnt that it's really important to moisturize hands after really hyper finger dances.

Rosey & I were invited by the British Council to play at the gorgeous L'Auditori in Barcelona where we premiered the amazingly multitalented composer, Phillip Neil Martin's "Clocked". We laughed so much we cried whilst touring Ireland to celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday and made our USA debut at the 'Music Festival of the Hamptons' in July '06 where we received the "Tiffany & Co. Rising Star Award' where our finger dances included Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Lutoslawski. We made it to the other side of the road after years of gazing out of our conservatoire window (Royal College of Music) at the almighty Royal Albert Hall in London when we performed there in March '05.....

Some of our favourite finger dances have been at the Wigmore Hall where we premiered Louis Andriessen's "Hague Hacking" and the following year we returned with Liszt, Piazzolla and Takemitsu. It was weird and amazing to watch our own finger dances when the oscar nominated film director Mike Figgis ( Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode) created a film featuring our Duo and a dancer from the Frankfurt ballet -- all projected on the biggest screen we'd ever seen bang in the middle of Trafalgar Sq, London as part of the London Film Festival. Wow, how I had that recurring dream of Ligeti cross- rhythms morphing into Jamie Lidell leading up to our debut at the Purcell Room, South Bank centre in January '05 where we had so much fun, I realized we simply could not have more fun finger dancing elsewhere and that 176 became my new favourite number.

With most grateful finger dancin' moves from London, Cassie.

www.yukawa-chan.com

www.myspace.com/cassieandrosey