Poetry Electric: Second Sex: Beats & Texts

Helixx C. Armageddon is a storyteller intrigued with the human condition. She is a performance artist that weaves together poetry and theatre to shift her audiences from observers to participants. Known for impassioned performances, Helixx channels a space for community, connection and dialogue. For her, words are powerful and create more than narrative; words create action and momentum towards a more just world. 

Beth Falcone is a New York-based composer/lyricist, pianist, conductor, and singing voice teacher. Her musical, Wanda’s World, was produced off-Broadway at the 45th St. Theater (Amas, in association with Terry Schnuck), received two Lortel Award nominations, including best musical, a Drama Desk Award nomination for best book, and she is a Kleban prize winner for Most Promising Lyricist. The show was released on Broadway Records in December of 2019 with album producer Michal J. Moritz, Jr. and has been licensed by Theatrical Rights Worldwide. For more information, visit: WANDASWORLDMUSICAL.com. Her work has been featured in Broadway Bound (Merkin Hall), Lincoln Center Library's New Composers' series, the BMI Showcase, Between the Lines radio show, and her music has been published at ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com. Beth is a Dramatists's Guild Fellow, a proud member of MAESTRA, BMI, NYSTA, PAVA (Pan American Vocology Association), VoiceCare Network, Voice Foundation and has a private studio in Manhattan. Her pitch matching method is the subject of a research study in collaboration with New York Medical College, and she is currently writing a book:"Life's a Pitch and Then you Sping!" For more information on Beth’s latest activities, visit: BethFalcone.com

Sophia Gutchinov is a multi-ethnic actress, performance artist, comedian, activist, model, and voice over artist. She is a current resident artist at La MaMa, in the midst of creating her own show. She loves writing to process the human experience. Sophia is so stoked to perform with Poetry Electric, with drumming by Sanal Leejean. She graduated in the top 10 of her class at Marymount Manhattan College with a BFA in Acting, specializing in experimental theater. She received her minor in Neuroscience as well. She regularly teaches webinars about the business of acting and has taught meditation webinars as well. She is the co-founder of The Tadpoles Company, production and theatre company. She loves bringing people together, especially through her art. @sophiagutchinov. www.sophiagutchinov.com

Viv Helvajian is an actor, singer, and dancer based in New York City. She has a BFA in Drama and a BA in Anthropology from New York University. She has performed at Rockwell Stage, Feinstein’s/54 Below, San Francisco Shakes Theatre Company, and Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. She is a lead in the feature film, The Arrival, and looks forward to its release this year.

Ritt Henn plays bass, writes songs, and lives in New York City. He’s played Off-Broadway, toured the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and been a featured performer with Carnatic global fusion violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam. He’s released four CDs of original music, a DVD of short films, produced over 200 episodes of ManBassBoxTV, and won both Bistro and MAC Awards for his work as a solo artist. Ritt has played for Kathleen Turner, Liz Callaway, Len Cariou, Penny Fuller, Anita Gillette, Chuck Berry and more. He also whistles and plays the ukulele. ManBassBoxTV.com

Olivia Hunt is a New York based playwright and essayist from Philadelphia. Her play,The Pit, is KCACTF Region II’s nominee for the National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Award. Her work has been read at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Carnegie Hall (Virtual) and Naked Angels Collective, staged at Village Playwrights’ Love is Queer Readings and The Kraine Theater, and published by Project Y Theatre Company and ANGLES Magazine. She is currently pursuing a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she is the 2022 National Beinecke Scholarship Nominee.

Adeena Karasick is a New York based poet, performer, cultural theorist and media artist and the author of 12 books of poetry and poetics. Most recently, Checking In (Talonbooks, 2018) and Salomé: Woman of Valor (University of Padova Press, Italy, 2017), Salomé: Woman of Valor CD, NuJu Records, 2020, and Bengali translation, Salomé Birangona, Boibhashik Prokashoni Press, Kolkata, 2020. Karasick teaches Literature and Critical Theory for the Humanities and MediaStudies Dept. at Pratt Institute in Bklyn, is Poetry Editor for Explorations in Media Ecology, Associate International Editor of New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication, 2019 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award recipient and winner of the 2016 Voce Donna Italia award for her contributions to feminist thinking. The “Adeena Karasick Archive” is established at Special Collections, Simon Fraser University.

Jane LeCroy serves the poetry gods day and night. Poet, singer, performance artist, teacher, and home-birthing mother of 3(REALLY!), she fronts the avant-pop band, The Icebergs, and the spontaneous experimental music project, Ω▽Ohmslice. Please - Follow her bands on your favorite streaming platform. Shelter Puppy is her new rock band that has a record coming out later this year. Jane LeCroy has toured with the famed SF based, all women’s poetry troupe, Sister Spit. She also performs as a featured character at Poetry Brothel NYC, and that character has a new erotica letterpress zine out- and other secrets to share, please ask her about it.

Oihana is an interpretative dancer, immense catalyst of creativity, visionary and healing artist. Since she left her native land in the north of Spain, she hasn’t stopped learning from different cultures, and every country she's lived in has enriched her life, her creative process, and her dance. With a background in acting, contemporary circus, and dance, she blended her academic knowledge with her spirituality and lived experiences, co-creating SEER Dance/Movement (Sacred Earth Embodied Ritual Dance/Movement), a dance form based on the sacred roots of Belly Dance, inspired by nature’s elements (earth, water, air and fire) and interwoven with energetic work, journeying, storytelling, and embodied prayer.

Ilka Scobie writes for American Book Review, London Artlyst and is an editor of Live Mag. Her book “Any Island” was published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2021.

Frances Timberlake is a writer and theater artist from Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2018 she graduated from the School for Creative and Performing Arts with an artistic diploma in Creative Writing. She now attends New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she is working toward a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing. Frances has been named a National YoungArts winner, nominated as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, published by Samuel French, and earned recognition through the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the Overture Awards. For the past several years she has been directing children’s theater at the Liberty Exhibition Hall, where she is also the Assistant Artistic Director.

William Wagner is a professional bassist, pianist, and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Jazz Studies from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. He’s performed with John Von Ohlen (Stan Kenton), Jason Rebello (Sting), Josiah Wolf (Why?), Fareed Haque, Bill Cunliffe, and J.D. Allen, to name a few. He’s composed dozens of works from big band charts to string quartet arrangements and has received a Downbeat Award for Composition. His music can be heard on all major streaming platforms under his artist name william.charles.wagner. IG:@william.charles.wagner