Headless Cowboy by Mister Christopher

" -Ameenah Kaplan

"Your new track sounds great, they are all really good....... " -Maya Zellman

"... great dynamics that make it impossible to sit still while listening to any of his tracks! His personality really comes through in his music." -Kathy King

BIOGRAPHY

Hassan Christopher aka "Mister Christopher" is considered by many to be one of today's most innovative young artists. In 2004 he won the Lester Horton Innovator Award for Choreography and has recently been nominated for an Ovation award for his work as a Director/Choreographer on the critically acclaimed and groundbreaking new musical J.O.B the Hip-Hopera. Christopher considers himself a writer who uses the mediums of dance, film & music to tell stories he feels are important. His narrative driven pieces have been compared to the work of Matthew Bourne & DV-8.

Always interested in expressing the full range of human experience Christopher has earned considerable attention since he made the decision to start his own interdisciplinary performance group Strange Company (formerly the Company of Strangers) in 2003. Incorporating original music, dance, film, and writing his work has been called everything from, "hair raising" and "electric" to "brilliant" "disturbing” and "delightfully absurd." What is most disturbing about Christopher is the rapid speed with which he is able to absorb new information and organize it into something remarkable. He sees this ability as being as much a blessing as a curse because it makes him so hungry to learn and try new things. His collaborators confirm this and are quick to comment that it's always an adventure working with him.

Those who have only known him as a choreographer are often surprised to learn of his secret life as a producer songwriter that began when he was in high school. As a teenager Christopher satisfied his musical impulses by collecting records and dancing in the clubs of the Chicago House scene. It was then that he first took an interest in creating dance tracks. Lacking the equipment or resources to pursue it seriously he stuck to spinning and mixing records to make mix tapes for friends before getting to produce his first track in college. He also had a brief stint as a front man for a band during his sophomore year. Ultimately he put music aside to pursue his career as a performer & choreographer full force. Yet, the deeper he went into dance the closer it brought him to music.

Looking back Christopher realizes his lack of commitment to pursuing music stems from negative impressions of his father as a would-be singer songwriter. Raised by his mother after a failed marriage, Christopher got the idea in is head that music was somewhat of a "loser's" activity. It wasn't until years later that Christopher would free himself from this limitation and surrender to what he describes as an overwhelming need to express through this channel. But rather than see the time he spent dancing and not making music as a deficit he looks at it as a very long incubation period for musical ideas that are now bursting out of his head.

Today fans are quick to note the parallels between what he does on stage with what he does with music; complex layering, rich textures, and visually stimulating juxtaposition of sounds and images. To Christopher it's all storytelling. The hard part was learning (and continuing to learn) to become fluent in a new language. Armed with a $100 software package and a vivid imagination he has been steadily pushing to express himself as articulately through sound as he does through movement. In some ways, he feels more at home choreographing beats, summoning melodies and visualizing audio than he does choreographing bodies on a stage or navigating dancer's often complicated personalities.

The ultimate however is bringing it all together for live performances as he did with great success last fall in an unlikely but fruitful collaboration with local Los Angeles Indie-Band 2=3. Christopher gave a preview of his track "Always fight for love" from his current release "TOoNs" to the group to adapt as a live piece performed at the Ford Amphitheater. The result was a surrealistic and funky cinematic sound that perfectly augmented Christopher’s clever and emotionally poignant choreography.

For Mister Christopher this is a big part of the future he sees for him and his Strange Co. Selling CD's while satisfying in and of itself on a personal level is even more meaningful when it translates to funding for live events where people can experience the interweaving of the visual, auditory and kinesthetic arts for the kind mind-blowing experience critics and audiences raved about after seeing J.O.B the Hip Hopera, co-directed and choreographed by Christopher last year.

Despite all of his success with J.O.B and Strange Co. Christopher still finds himself at the mercy of producers, and grant foundations that may or may not understand and appreciate his innovative approach to storytelling. That pressure to develop independent sources of income and distribution for his art are one of the things that drive him to produce these CD's. Obviously it's a lot cheaper and easier to distribute music than it is to distribute a live dance concert. The reality of producing a hit single or CD maybe a long shot, but it's more about the symbolic gesture of taking matters into your own hands in addition to the revenue that can be derived from a loyal fan base. It's about communicating Mister Christopher's belief in DIY politics. Never one to shy away from a challenge Mister Christopher is embracing the art of entrepreneurship along with his commitment to self-expression on one's own terms by any means necessary.

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