Who are The Illumin8tors?

The Illumin8tors is a music/dance/visual arts collective formed around several mainstays of the Shanghai music scene. Founding member, Estel Vilar, conceived the group as a way to fuse a love of music and performance with an appreciation of Chinese culture and legends. Members of The Illumin8tors hail from such diverse bands as Hotter Than Teppanyaki, Break for Borneo, The Dovetail Joints, Pause and The Beat Bandits. The Illumin8tors also contains several of Shanghai’s finest capoeiristas.

Estel Vilar – director, vocals, songwriting, flute, dancing, acting, costume/prop design

Estel comes from Cantonigròs, a tiny, beautiful village in the foothills of the Pyrenees in north-eastern Spain. She grew up around music and studied it until  becoming a rebellious teenager. She expressed this rebellion in later years by studying for degrees in Translation and Cultural Management. It seems, however, that the pull of song and dance was too strong to resist and in recent years she has found release through playing Capoeira as well as being a founding member of eclectic folk gangsters, Hotter than Teppanyaki.

Catlin Smith – songwriting, vocals, acting, dancing, shenanigans, costume/prop design

Catlin (a.k.a. Cat, Gata, Gatuvica and “hey, you over there”) is from all over the continental United States but has spent most of her life in Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. She is an all-singing, all-dancing creative wiz who is not afraid to get done up in a crazy costume if the timing is (or isn’t) appropriate. A graduate of the Black Rock City School of Performing Arts, she has flare and pizazz and lots of charisma. In Solar/Lunar she plays the sexy and seductive Queen Mother of the West. How appropriate.

Dave Hampson – songwriting, vocals, drums, acting, humour

Dave holds the honour of being the only member of The Illumin8tors to hail from the United Kingdom. In true British style, Dave has a strong penchant for the Sport of Kings, that is, horse racing. Though he is more likely to be seen in the betting office than riding on the back of one, he has confessed that if he had one million dollars he’d be likely to buy a few horses and race them against each other. When not playing the drums or racing horses, Dave can be found riding the waves into shore on a breezy tropical island, probably in south-east Asia. Dave is another founding member of Hotter than Teppanyaki as well as being an integral member of Shanghai’s finest surf-rock outfit, The Beat Bandits.

Adam Gaensler – songwriting, guitar, vocals

Adam is the “real” musician in the group, having studied a degree in Music in his native Australia. He doesn’t often mention that his major was Musicology and not Guitar Shredding as he’d have the other members of The Illumin8tors believe. Adam has played in a bunch of bands in Shanghai, including The Dovetail Joints and The Rogue Transmission but these days he’s more often found on the other side of the console as mixing/mastering engineer for many other local bands. When he was young he wanted to be a tiger but his parents said “NO!” and that was that. So he went into blogging instead and is now the sole writer for luwanrock.com.

Shimizu Yusuke – bass guitar

Yusuke is the only member of The Illumin8tors from Tokyo and fittingly, his favourite food is Japanese Tofu. He has played the bass guitar for almost a decade and shares with Adam and Dave a love of classic rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. In his studies he majored in History though if he could have he would have gotten a degree in Comic Books. Yusuke plays with two other bands in Shanghai – he plays acoustic guitar in folk-rock band, Pause, as well as playing bass guitar with hard rockers, Free Love Armada.

Becca Smith – songwriting, vocals, guitar, hotness

Becca is The Illumin8tors Hawaii representative and she lives up to it, almost to a T. She craves Hawaiian food, especially Squid Luau, she plays the ukulele to perfection and she is a pretty good surfer too. Does it get any more Hawaiian?
Becca has been writing songs on ukulele and guitar since she was 17, and she’s pretty good at it by now. She wrote her first song as a present for someone because she wasn’t sure what to buy for them (and, she adds, she was probably broke). Since being in Shanghai she’s played, sung and written for Break for Borneo and The Dovetail Joints as well as doing plenty of solo gigs. As well as being a fabulous singer and songwriter, Becca is a loving, caring soul. Say hi to her if you get the chance – it’s worth it.

Nicolas Usé – berimbau, acting, graphic design, visuals animation, setting design

Nicolas (Nico to his friends) is a mountain guy and he loves mountin’ girls. Wait, that didn’t come out quite right. Nico is from Voiron in the French Alps, famously home of the terribly drinkable but quite intoxicating beverage known as Chartreuse. When he’s not getting drunk on the wonderful green liquid (55%!!!) he’s often outdoors – skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer and playing capoeira all year round. He loves traveling but his favourite destination is with you. No, not you there. Yes, the cute girl on the right. Yes, you. In another life Nico would like to have been born as Bruce Lee. But then he wouldn’t have his super-powers. “What super powers are they?”, I asked him. His reply: ” I can’t tell you, it’s a secret. Do you think Clark Kent would tell you what super powers he has? . . . Seriously, dude . . .”

Olga Merekina – design genius (costumes/props/setting/visuals), dancing and acting

Most of her friends know her as Menina and she is our very own certified RCG (that’s Russian Creative Genius). Menina has been in China for 6 years – this is probably made somewhat easier by the fact that her hometown of Vladivostok is much closer to Shanghai than the rest of The Illumin8tors‘ hometowns. When not engaging in any aspect of the visual arts she can be found playing capoeira. She has a lot of skill but she never,  ever lets her guard down, even when playing with children. Menina is aware that all it takes is one skilled five-year-old to kick her ass.

Kirsti Jönson – dancing

Representing northern Europe, we have Kirsti from Sweden. Kirsti is quite the bohemian. She is a hardcore vegetarian, owns two black cats, loves shuffling through autumn leaves and already as a five-year-old she dreamt of going to Africa to save endangered species by killing poachers. Now she didn’t end up taking care of those evil elephant killers, but instead became a cultural journalist and a dancer. Loving anything funky, she gets down with her jazz dance moves to rnb, soul, funk, Motown, burlesque, drum and bass or of course her highly beloved 60′s pop-inspired “Pizzicato Five” from Japan. She really digs living in Shanghai, especially because of China’s relaxed social inhibitions. For example, she gets thrilled by seeing someone walking backwards down the street or bumping their stomach repeatedly into a tree. “It’s like a world of grown-ups acting as freely and untamed as children do.”