Alexandru Catona

Romania / Canada, Composer / Performer

Born and raised in Romania, Alex started his early artistic endevours playing classical cello and studying composition; throughout his ensuing career a number of key encounters/influences with the work of artists such as Ornette Coleman, Jackson Pollock, John Coltrane, Derek Bailey, Bill Dixon, Edward Kienholz, Ken Jacobs, Keiji Haino and Andrei Tarkovskihelped helped him begin forging his own path and his own improvisational idiom, a task to which he dilligently applies himself to the present day. Under his own name, Alex has composed and performed in dozens of interdisciplinary theatre and film projects and collaborated with such artists as Samir Akika, Markus Michailovski, Norbert Steinwartz, Janet Archer, Lorca Renoux, Alfredo Catania, Hans Klohe, Hernan Jimenez and Jose Arce.

In 2004 Alex met Charlotte Vincent at Rui Horta’s COLINA project in Portugal and in February 2005 he performed in Swim Like A Goldfish, directed by Janet Archer, at Dance City, Newcastle. Broken Chords was Alex’s first collaboration with Vincent Dance Theatre as a performer and composer. In summer 2007 he took part in Stand Up, a period of research with VDT in London and Portugal and in 2009 he composed the soundtrack for If We Go On, performing in the work on tour in 2009/10. In 2012 He composed and performed Motherland on tour in the UK and USA. He is based in Costa Rica with Andrea Catania and co-directs Lasafueras.