Poetry Electric MLK Day Event: SAY IT LOUD

Eve Blackwater is song-writer, actress, and fire-performance specialist.  She performed in local theater as a child, and wrote and directed theater for political change in highschool, and went on to graduate from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  Rescue highlights include leading roles in Shakespeare in the Park, starring in the cult horror movie Gothkill, and teaching classical theater to at-risk kids.  After being bossed around by too many directors, Eve become a fire-eater in a local circus.  In between her death-defying acts,she taught herself to play guitar and write music.  Now she chases danger in her songs, drawing on the music of the Mississippi Delta and fairy tails of the brother’s Grimm as inspiration.  She is co-creator and lead songstress of the musical collaboration Knife Thrower’s Assistance, performs with the bands Annacoustic Mind and Eve and the Alligators, and is writing her first book.

Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is an artist, critic, eco-activist, impresario and publisher, but is best known as a poet. He received his MFA in Poetry after studying with Allen Ginsberg. From 1987 to 2000 he ran Cover Magazine, the Underground National. He is art editor of Boog City and for many years, poetry reviewer for The Brooklyn Rail. In 2014 he won Theater for the New City’s poetry contest. Recent books include Triple Crown, Sonnets from Spuyten Duyvil and Party Everywhere written during a residency with EMediaLoft. He also produces events at KGB and La Mama ETC in conjunction with his magazine, Live Mag! www.livemag.org

Ian Ellis James (aka William Electric Black) is a seven-time Emmy Award winning writer (former writer for Sesame Street). Ian has been writing in the family entertainment television industry for over fifteen years. His credits in family TV include Sesame Workshop, Topstone Productions, Lancit Media, Nickelodeon,Scholastic Productions, Warner Cable, Winchester TV & Film,(London), Voodoo Entertainment, (Vancouver).

Kid Lucky is a vocal sound artist who uses the voice to create sonic pictures and invoke various emotions to the listener. Kid Lucky specializes in beatboxing, floetry and scatting. Since 1996 Kid Lucky has been considered one of the most cuttting edge vocalists in the world. In 1996 he formed his first all vocal band called Real Conscious Venue with two friends. After that he formed another group called Urban Chants. Kid Lucky spent the next few years developing his vocal craft and presenting it all over New York City. He moved to Prague for two years in 2008 and there he developed a vocal style he calls BEATRHYMING – beatboxing and rhyme flow at the same time. Kid Lucky‘s vocal style is a combination of four different vocal techniques into one, beatboxing, spoken word, scatting, and Tuvan throat singing. Combined, these four techniques are the foundation for beatrhyming.

Harry Mann has performed with Theater For The New City Summer Street Theatre for 4 years. He has worked on various projects with William Electric Black at La MaMa and other venues. He has performed with an array of artists including Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin, and The Talking Band. Harry has composed/performed with choreographers Eva Dean, Yosiko Chuma, and Dance Theatre of Toronto.  Instrumental ensembles Harry has played with Ray Charles, Cecil Taylor, and Lawrence Butch Morris. He currently performs with performance artists Clea Rivera and is co-leader of the jazz duo Gorilla My Love with Neal Kirkwood.

Ω▽ Ohmslice is a composer/original instrument maker, Bradford Reed & poet/singer, Jane LeCroy, joining forces to make New Psychedelic Sounds conveying transcendental messages transmitted from the cosmos, providing you with truly transportive XperiMENTAL grooviness. Get your electrical resistance on with Experimental Music and Literature bathed in extraordinary extras of special guests. Must see Bradford Reed’s newest instrument connected to the conduit of Jane’s grip of the alphabet messing with Time, our shining bridge. Come see hear, cosmic vibrations; we are tethered to other worlds.

Lech Szporer is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and writer focusing on the relationship between art, social change, public scholarship, and community history. He is co-founder and director of Give Kids Your Instruments, a nonprofit that secures resources for music and arts education for young people growing up in lower income communities and areas emerging from conflict. A graduate of The New School for Public Engagement, Lech also has a lifetime of street knowledge. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Levern Williams is a Singer-Songwriter-Actor, born in Chester, South Carolina, who moved to New York at an early age where his interest for music began to take shape.  Levern, known as Levern “the Entertainer” Williams, a versatile performing artist/Jazz stylist; has been compared to Nat King Cole. Levern flaunts a unique, exuberant style that is undoubtedly his own which energizes and captures his audience. After years of community service, Levern is now dedicating more time, towards his first love, performing songs by the great balladers of Jazz.

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