Monifa Harris and Shannon Wong Lerner have been working on "No One Hurts You More Than S/Mother" for the past couple of years. Their collaboration started with a trade in yoga and holistic voice lessons, and has resulted in a series of different papers and performances for a mixed audience of artists and scholars, opera enthusiasts and novices, alike. The first public installation resulted in a co
nference paper for UNC-G's Public Memory conference in 2011 in which "S/Mother" first appeared. S/Mother appeared within an academic/operatic aria format that connected the performative writing styles of philosopher, Luce Irigaray to the neglected figure of the mezzo soprano in feminist theory: "No One Hurts You More Than Smother: Luce Irigaray and the Hysterical Diva." She got her start in singing in New Orleans as a jazz-inspired street singer. She was always inspired to perform one-person shows while listening to older jazz/vaudeville singers such as Bessie Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Sophie Tucker, Mae West, and Helen Kane. She received her Applied Music Degree in classical/jazz voice from American River College in 2000. Coming from a family lineage of Yiddish Vaudeville performers, Shannon has followed by performing Yiddish Vaudeville in San Francisco with the direction of Joel Schecher, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at the Historic Calumet Theatre, as well as other one-woman venues at local cafes. She has performed as a jazz singer in various other venues (from small intimate spaces to crowds of several hundred) throughout the years. Shannon has sung renditions of jazz, classical, choral, and opera in non-Western languages as well, Shanghainese, Cantonese, and Mandarin Chinese. The last two years, she has been studying opera, alongside the work of Luce Irigaray. She has brought the two together for this show. She just returned from a seminar at the University of Bristol where she studied with Luce Irigaray. Monifa Harris is a professional opera singer who regularly performs with the North Carolina Opera Company. She recently returned from Bulgaria and Greece where she was on tour with two opera venues. Full bio of Monifa to come...
Together, Monifa and Shannon have just finished a book chapter for the book, Breathing with Luce Irigaray with Continuum Press about Irigaray's theory and performance, "'All of my work is performance': Irigarayan Methods of Breath for Dance and Voice," alongside a modern dancer, Marie Garlock. Kristina Warren, composer, pianist, soprano
Born in 1989 in Detroit, composer Kristina Warren holds a B.A. in Music, Focus in Composition, from Duke University (2011). Within her degree she earned High Distinction for her Senior Distinction Project, consisting of an analysis of James MacMillan’s percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, and an original composition, Words (Yes) (Fl-Toms-Bodhrán-Ssolo-Vln-Elec). Warren has composed a wide variety of pieces, including negative one plus three equals two (Duke Univ. Wind Symphony), the Beer Suite (S.A.T.B. recorders), and other works for chamber ensembles and/or electronics. Warren has been fortunate to study composition with Anthony Kelley, Scott Lindroth, and John Supko; voice with Sandra Cotton and Elizabeth Linnartz; and piano with Susan Greenberg and Pei-fen Liu. Warren draws inspiration from the music of MacMillan, Messiaen, Dallapiccola, Ligeti, and many others; she has been delighted and challenged by the SMother project, and is thrilled to be participating. Leah Wilks is a Durham-based dancer, teacher and choreographer. Her first dance class involved her sitting in the corner and sucking her thumb. After the thumb-sucking class, she moved on to ballet, rhythm tap, modern, west african, and contact improv. She quickly discovered an incredible love not only for the physical aspect of the movement in all of these styles, but also for the stories and worlds that the movement could create. After studying dance and environmental studies for four years at Vassar College Leah moved to Oakland, CA for a year and then back to the triangle area in the fall of 2010. She currently teaches release based technique, contact improv and composition to high school students at Carolina Friends School, dances for Gaspard Louis and Dancers in Durham, and works on a variety of video, movement, theater and multi-media projects throughout the triangle. No One Hurts You More Than S/Mother will debut at Hill Hall room 107, Febuary 11, 2012 7PM-February 14, 2012 5:30. Conceived by Shannon Wong Lerner and Monifa Harris
Written, Performed, and Directed by: Shannon Wong Lerner
Music Composed by: Kristina Warren and melodist Monifa Harris
Accompanist and Sound Design: Kristina Warren
Choreography: Leah Wilks
Directorial and creative assistance: Joseph Megel and Monifa Harris
Advised by: Joseph Megel
More to come about S/Mother...stay tuned!!!!
