Rocchino Franchelli

Rocco graduated from Nottingham Trent four years ago, from the Performing Arts department with experimental work including 'Brain Waves technology'. Since then he has been self-employed as a musician (specialising in keyboards & accordion with midi interface), a composer, musical director and teacher of music. He has composed music for several films, some enjoying success at Cannes Film Festival. Rocco has also been involved in many live art & multi-media performances around Europe since 1994.
He is a founder musician in Borderline Guerillas along with Walt Shaw, Corey Mwamba, Graham Foster and Uncle Peechi, aka Peter James. Rocco was a key musical member of the Polarities project, a multi-media project involving Borderline Guerillas and dancers in 2003.

He is happy to work for Armstrong Learning, where he helps other unemployed musicians and DJs to find work or improve there music career. During the week-ends, Rocco plays for the Italian community around England.

 


Walt Shaw

Walt Shaw, also a founder member of the BET4 Artists group is a painter, percussionist and performance artist, also with an impressively wide and varied CV, filled with experimental and contemporary theatre, music and dance collaborations. He has performed music and theatre and has exhibited his fine art and sculptures throughout the UK and Europe over the past 15 years.

In the past year alone, Walt has performed with the Borderline Guerillas, with the Foot in Hand touring group, in the Polarities project where he was the director and principal provider of concepts and most recently has been occupied with the writing and staging of his own Timepoints performances around the Midlands. Walt's energy and creativity and his ongoing musical relationship with Graham, with whom he has performed music over the past twenty years in a variety of line-ups, will be one of the central sources of artistic input into The Rise Of Robert.

 


Graham Foster (Musician, Performance Artist)

Graham Foster is a musician and performer in physical theatre. He plays bass, stick and samplers / electronics. In the eighties he played in various bands and was involved in several multi-media projects and installations. In the nineties Graham was a vital member of the BET4 performance team, in a role of musician and physical performer.

In the last three years Graham has played bass and electronics in the experimental improvisational quintet, Borderline Guerillas. He is multi-skilled coupled with a high level of creativity. Graham was a key performer and contributor to the writing and direction of the recent Polarities performances by Symbiosis.


In addition to the BET 4 work, Graham has appeared in a number of performance art events with Peter James at Nottingham Trent University as dancer, performer / musician between 1999 and 2001. Since 2001, he has been mainly involved in the improvising group Borderline Guerillas, where, in addition to playing concerts he records, re-mixes and produces CD's of the group's output, including their recent collaborations with Lol Coxhill, the veteran improvising jazz saxophonist. He is one of the artists guesting in Walt Shaw's current series of performances, Timepoints, appearing in Birmingham and Burton shows.

 


Peter James - alias Unkle Peechi


Pete graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2000 with BA Hons in Contemporary Arts. Since then he has done Arts workshops with young people in some of the more disadvantaged social areas of Nottingham (especially the Meadows). Much of this work has been initiated by Pete and now he is enjoying a higher profile for what he has achieved in attempting to move these areas from having a negative image to having a positive one. The BBC have featured a review of Pete which went out as part of Midlands Today in May2003.

Pete was a key performer in BET4 Performance (see above). He is equally at home as a musician (electronics and decks) and as a physical performer. Pete has performed solo Live Art performances at Warwick University, in Nottingham, and at Glastonbury 2000 (where his piece 'The Bread-Winner' was singled out by Melody Maker and Q magazine as 'the oddest site at Glastonbury Festival 2000'). He is a key member of the experimental band Borderline Guerillas, in 2003 completing a project with Lol Coxhill. More recently Pete played a key role in the music/contemporary dance piece Polarities with Walt Shaw. Pete now works with BET.4Motion along with Walt Shaw and other musicians, performance artists and dancers. He is also appearing in 2 performances of Walt Shaw's Timepoints performances in 2004.