2011

Y. E. Torres (ms. YET) is a contemporary bellydancer and a multidisciplinary visual/performing artist. She acts as a visual artist, dancer, model, costume designer, photographer and curator, in a wide range of collaborative projects. Working alongside musicians, filmmakers and photographers, she focuses on collaborations of seemingly disparate artforms into single events. As a visual artist, she creates mixed media drawings and paintings inspired by music, exploitation art/entertainment, physical anomalies, curiosities, painful challenges of human conflict and the deviant, sensual nature of human emotion. As a contemporary bellydancer, her performances range from folkloric, modern bellydance fusion and an investigation of improvising movement to sound. In combination, Torres uses the practices of drawing, costumes design, installation and movement to create environments and luscious insular landscapes, where her body plays the role of dancer and canvas. Torres began her study of Oriental Dance at the age of 17 while attending Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts as a visual artist. After receiving a BFA in Drawing & Painting and a BFA in Fashion Design from the University of North Texas, Torres immediately returned to her dance and performance study. She is a Yoga instructor (200 RYT), Bellydance/Fusion instructor, Level One Certified by the Suhaila School of Bellydance and has traveled throughout the United States to train with Jill Parker, Suhaila Salimpour, Rachel Brice and a cast of present day masters of the bellydance and tribal fusion forms. Torres has exhibited her visual art and dance films at universities, museums and galleries throughout the US and Europe. For the past several years, Torres has been (as a movement artist/dancer) an active member of the improvised music scene. As a movement artist/improviser, Torres has collaborated with many musicians, including: Tatsuya Nakatani, Sandy Ewen, Tom Carter, Sabir Mateen, Bhob Rainey, Donald Miller, Rob Cambre, Aaron Gonzalez, Konk Pack, Damon Smith, David Dove, Jo Bird, Hilary Sloan, I Am Mesmer and Sideshow Tramps.

For info on classes, costume design or to purchase artwork email me at YET.Torres@gmail.com.