Bio
Josie Roth was born in Cleveland, Ohio, an artist from the time she could hold a crayon, also gifted in violin playing from the time she was 7. After high school, she attended Carnegie Mellon University majoring in studio Art. From Pittsburgh she continued her art studies at the San Francisco Art Institute receiving a BFA in Painting. From there she moved to the Los Angeles area and received an MFA in Painting and Intermedia.
Intermedia would prove to be the relevant description of what her work would become after leaving art school, with an emphasis on "inter" or "multi", as in multimedia. First Roth did installations using paper and paint, which included her in the piece at the time of the opening of the show. The piece for her MFA thesis was entitled "Finding Space Where There Isn't Any" which took place in the college Gallery, and was inspired by the gallery directors unwillingness to give her a space including archictectural elements, such as door jambs, celing, etc., upon which to do an installation. She therefore constructed two parallel partitions into which was piled crushed newspaper pages. At a time during the MFA show opening Roth dove into the pile of crushed newspaper and came out at the other side, exploring the space that was not readily apparent from a first look at the structure in the center of the room. This piece was done in the mid '70s, before there was much awareness of installation art in Los Angeles.
Soon she picked up the viola and with a partner in Los Angeles created an avantgarde music group which performed for 15 years and became legendary in Los Angeles within the Music and Experimental Art world. They performed in art galleries, underground clubs, and opened for the Go Go's at the Whiskey a Go Go on Sunset Strip. She also collaborated and performed with various performance artists and dancers in Los Angeles. Presently her solo work uses sound effects, creating sonic backdrops upon which she performs live with viola and voice, using performance as part of the tools of her trade.
Also included in Josie's life, concurrently with the above and at present, is her study of dance, beginning with jazz dance and moving into modern. She has performed in cutting edge contemporary dance and created music for it. She became passionate about the art of Flamenco and traveled to Spain where she studied with legendary Flamenco dancers at the famed Amor de Dios school for Flamenco dance. Later she became interested in Butoh and received a fellowship from the Asian American Arts Council, a division of the Rockefeller Foundation, to study with a Butoh master outside of Tokyo, Japan. Currently she practices Ballet and Pilates on a regular basis.
Her work in the area of performance led her to acting which plunged her into the area of voiceover performance, studying the craft of acting to perfect her voice delivery. She took classes with most of the respected voiceover teachers in the L.A. area and took method acting workshops. Her voice can be heard on the Demos page of this site. She produces spots in her own studio which is fully equipped for audio and graphics production.
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