we live in space/ 2520 W Jefferson Blvd / LA, CA 90018
Sharon Chohi Kim, Maria Maea and Micaela Tobin are holding a free voice-healing workshop for female-identifying people as part of Maria’s residency at WE LIVE IN SPACE and their new opera, Unseal Unseam. The aim of this workshop is to help participants discover a sense of self-empowerment through breath, voice and body.
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“The trauma we experience echoes through our bodies and out into our days, weeks, years, lives. We sit in that space afraid and guarded. I no longer want my pain to be the loudest part of my existence. I want to share, break it down and let go. I want to do this with others and hear their voices and find joy in our collective release.” -Maria
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The workshop will cover the basics of healthy vocal production, specifically focusing on releasing points of tension through creative sound exercises and gentle movement, culminating in a structured improvisation with the alignment of body, voice, and sound. All experience levels welcome! Please join us in this practice.
Sopranos Sharon Chohi Kim and Micaela Tobin are composers and teachers that specialize in experiential voice and new opera. Their current piece, entitled “Unseal Unseam” is a feminist response to the misogynistic narratives of traditional opera.
We are part of a creative team of female identifying artists that make new opera. We seek to use our artistic resources to tell stories–unwitnessed and undocumented– through music theatre. Our performances attempt to reclaim and reshape the female narratives that dominate traditional opera. To that end, our current piece ‘Unseal Unseam’ is an electroacoustic opera that examines the too-often invisible world of domestic violence, and hopes to provide a place for healing and solidarity. The opera will be premiering in Fall 2017 at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica. We want to ground the work in the lived truths of our community, so in conjunction with the opera, we are holding space in the form of an open workshop for healing the voice for any female-identifying people who are interested.
Sharon Chohi Kim is a Los Angeles-based voice artist, educator, and composer. She currently holds a faculty position at the American Music and Dramatic Academy. Sharon recently made her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut as the Mezzo-Soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the Pacific American Master Chorale Orchestra. She was seen as Lucha in Hopscotch -a mobile opera for 24 cars (dir. Yuval Sharon) with the acclaimed opera company, The Industry, and as a vocalist in the West Coast Premiere of Sila: Breath of the World by John Luther Adams for the Ojai Music Festival. She has also performed with the Los Angeles Opera, El Paso Opera Company and Chamizal National Memorial, Texas; Opera Nova Scotia, and Jang Chun Art Hall and Yeoungdeungpogu Theatre in Seoul, South Korea. www.sharonchohikim.com
Maria Maea is a Los Angeles based performance artist creating through objects, sound and body. Currently in residency at we live in space, she has focused her practice on mirroring – seeking to hold intentional space to see and be seen, to collectively move healing into a space of joy.
Maria is a member of Taisha Paggett’s experimental dance company WXPT and has performed with the collective at the Hammer Museum, LACE Gallery, and the Bowtie Project. She is also a participating builder for Rafa Esparza’s adobe galleries that have exhibited group shows for brown artist at The Whitney Biennial and currently at Ballroom Marfa. Maria leads a series of movement and voice workshops GRACELESS LADY with experimental opera singer Micaela Tobin.
She collaborates and performs sound, movement and musings as UNICA and under her name, Maria Maea. www.mariamaea.com
Soprano and sound artist Micaela Tobin specializes in contemporary opera and experimental voice. Micaela currently teaches voice on faculty at CalArts and at the Los Angeles Music and Art School. Prominent voice students include Daveed Diggs (Hamilton: An American Musical). As a collaborator, Micaela premiered a new opera called Body Ship at the 2016 New Works Festival at REDCAT, Los Angeles, and the principal role in the opera, Dada Divas (comp. Jacqueline Bobak), at the XIII Festival Internacional Musica Nueva in Monterrey, Mexico. She also performed with The Industry in their groundbreaking opera, Hopscotch-a mobile opera for 24 cars. Micaela composes and performs her own hybrid of noise music and opera under the moniker, “White Boy Scream,” recently performing at the New Music Encounters Plus International Music Festival in Brno, Czech Republic. www.micaelatobin.com
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