Join bespoken and the International Contemporary Ensemble for a free, four-part online series focusing on the intersection of technology and art. Each session will have different speakers discussing their artistry and practice across four disciplines – moving image, audio engineering, live-sound, and video – and how their work intersects within each area. How does technology and art come together in performance? How do we begin to work across disciplines? The series is not only educational but also a platform for empowerment, breaking down the barriers to using technology in an artist’s practice, & specifically for women & gender non-conforming artists.
After hearing from each artist about their artistic journey, we will go into two topic-specific breakout rooms - sound and video - spaces for more detailed questions related to each area and getting to know each other better. Please feel free to bring questions related to your own work/projects you are working on!
Presented by bespoken and the International Contemporary Ensemble
Speakers: Melody Loveless, Live Coder and Multimedia Artist; Clara Warnaar, Percussionist, Drummer, Composer, Sound Artist; Simone Barros, Filmmaker; Sewra G. Kidane, Film Editor and Director
letsbespoken.org (Gina Izzo & Eunbi Kim, Co-founders)
Sewra G. Kidane, Melody Loveless, Clara Warnaar, Simone Barros
SEWRA G. KIDANE, Film Editor and Director
She/Her/Hers
Sewra G Kidane is a renowned Creative Commercial Film Editor, working with fashion and beauty brands such as Creme of Nature, Estée Lauder, Herring & Herring, and Ooshie. She has an innate ability with her editing style, elevating the quality of the footage, whether its high budget beauty rushes, gritty digital handheld material, or found media and transforming it from a raw concept into a stylized spot. A native New Yorker and a graduate of Emerson College, Boston, Ms. Kidane is currently based in New York City.
Creating stretches farther than editing. She is also an accomplished jeweler of her own jewelry line; Waist Beads by Sewra, specializing in artistry beading and contemporary waist beads; an ancient tradition of adornment. Editing and beading go hand in hand, as one inspires the other to push forward. Both start off as distinct separate elements, that in the end, come together to form a beautifully strung ensemble.
Transitioning from Film Editing into Directing, Ms. Kidane directed her first fashion film “Proclamation Punctuation”, which has won 12 awards, including “Best Visual Moving Art”, “Best Short Film” and “Best Glam Fashion Film”. Noticing a lack of Black fashion, glamour, and beauty being shown and celebrated, particularly in the fashion film world, Ms. Kidane decided to create her own lane. "Proclamation Punctuation" has been featured in various national media outlets and named on Forbes’ list of “The 12 Best Fashion Films”, and is currently streaming on kweliTV. Along with beading, editing, and directing fashion films, Ms. Kidane is also an Adjunct Professor for “Film + Fashion” course and “Editing + Post” at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, teaching the next generation about fashion films and creative editing. Her vision combined with her meticulous artistry has allowed her to pave a new style of fashion films as she has for waist beads!
IG / FB / TWITTER : @SewraGee || IG For Film Work: @GeeSpotCine
MELODY LOVELESS, Live Coder and Multimedia Artist
She/Her/Hers
Melody Loveless is a musician, educator, and multimedia artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work ranges from live coding performance, generative sound installations, multisensory performance, and more. Her work and collaborations have been presented internationally in various countries including the USA, Iceland, Norway, the UK, Germany, and Spain at venues such as PS122, Eyebeam, and (le) poisson rouge. She has given talks on her work and philosophies at the New Music Gathering, Monthly Music Hackathon, and Bates Digital Music Symposium and has been invited as a guest artist at Stony Brook University and Parsons School of Design. Melody has recently been on faculty at the New School and Hunter College and currently teaches at Harvestworks.
Instagram: @melodycodes
Twitter: @melodyloveless
Photo: Emi Spicer
CLARA WARNAAR, Percussionist, Drummer, Composer, Sound Artist
She/Her/Hers
Clara Warnaar is an artist based in New York, working as a percussionist, drummer, composer and sound artist. Clara performs regularly with the International Contemporary Ensemble and American Modern Ensemble, and leans towards collaborative, devised and interdisciplinary projects. Recent premieres and recordings include: Ted Hearne "PLACE" (Brooklyn Academy of Music), Missy Mazzoli "Proving Up" (Opera Omaha and Miller Theater), Steve Reich "Reich/Richter" (The Shed NYC), Ellen Reid "Run/Playground" (Opera Omaha) and So Percussion "A Gun Show". Clara’s compositional style merges field recordings, classical music and electronics, with a focus on cinematic narrative, as can be heard in her debut album Hollow Siren. Clara is also the drummer for the post-rock band Infinity Shred.
“Since 2015, I've been incorporating the use of DAWs (digital audio workstations) in my practices as a percussionist, as a composer, and as a songwriter in the band Infinity Shred. I'd love to share some key information for getting started in DAWs, and share how my love for sound collage and sample-based projects has grown since my introduction to Ableton (my DAW of choice- though I'll talk in general audio terms that show up in most DAWs). Part of what has made this process fun and accessible, is that I work a lot with "voice memos" making it a very democratic, autobiographical and "cheap" process to make music from anything in your surroundings.”
social media handles: @clarawarnaar
Photo: Joey Tobin
SIMONE BARROS, Filmmaker
She/Her/Hers
As filmmaker and audiobook director, Simone Barros has worked with acclaimed authors including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jacqueline Woodson and Ibram X. Kendi. Funded by grants, Simone directs documentaries, experimental shorts and sound art, which have screened in New York and Cleveland. From Atlanta, Simone moved to Manhattan as an undergraduate in New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts receiving the Martin Scorsese Filmmaker Grant and Tisch Dean Craft Award. Upon graduation Simone worked postproduction for filmmakers Judith Helfand, Sam Pollard and Spike Lee and produced work for A&E, Comedy Central and CBS. Simone has recently started teaching Film and Video Technical Practice at Pratt Institute and new media at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stargate Theatre program for court-involved young men and men in transition.
Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/simonevbarros/, https://stochasticartworks.tumblr.com/, https://www.facebook.com/stochasticartworks/
Photo: Zachary Betonte
Performances and commissioning activities during the 2019-20 concert season are made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc., Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, Amphion Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Pacific Harmony Foundation, Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, mediaThe foundation inc., The Casement Fund, BMI Foundation, as well as public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council for the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the Illinois Arts Council Agency. The International Contemporary Ensemble is the Ensemble in Residence of the Nokia Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.