Streaming Live on April 22 at 6PM EST at Live.NationalSawdust.org

Part of the 2021 Digital Discovery Festival: BODY / SPACE

Toulmin Fellows Marisa Michelson and Miriam Parker

In partnership with The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU

Two co-Toulmin Fellows from National Sawdust's season-long collaboration with The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU – composer, performer, and founder of Constellation Chor, Marisa Michelson, and interdisciplinary artist Miriam Parker – connect sound and movement from sacred music to free jazz, Buddhism to divine spirituality. Their digital premiere will explore making visible that which is invisible in the space of human interactions, through Constellation Chor’s “core sounding” practice of channeling impulses, energies and pure emotions (i.e. emotions that arise from the body in the present moment, without narrative attached) into singing and movement. As part of their fellowship, Michelson and Parker will be mentored by acclaimed opera and theater director Yuval Sharon.

Marisa Michelson is a singer, composer, improviser, vocal philosopher and teacher. She is the founder and director of the vocal performance collective Constellation Chor, an immersion in voice, movement, and spirit. Performing internationally and in New York City, the Chor made their Lincoln Center debut in 2018 while premiering Ashley Fure’s Filament with the New York Philharmonic. Since 2016, Constellation Chor has been in residence at the historic Judson Memorial Church, and in 2019, the Chor performed monthly at Spectrum in Brooklyn. They’ve collaborated with Claire Chase, Sarah Hennies, the Kitchen, Heartbeat Opera, and Harvard Art Lab; since the pandemic, they joined Maria Popova and Paola Prestini at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, BK, to bring to life Prestini’s composition “Tree of 40 Fruit” as part of an outdoor ritual-celebration. As well as collaborating with composers, choreographers, directors, and videographers, they also perform interdisciplinary pieces composed by Michelson. Michelson’s award-winning compositions and theatre pieces have been called “exquisite” (The New York Times), “otherworldly” (Steven Suskin), and “gorgeous ... adventurous” (Vox Magazine). Miriam Parker is an interdisciplinary artist who uses movement, paint, media and sculpture/installation within a performance-based practice. Her work has been influenced by her experience as a dancer, her study of Buddhism and phenomenology, and her connection to the free jazz tradition. Parker has performed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Fridman Gallery, in residency at École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and at the Every Women Biennial in New York, among others. Parker has received grants from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2013 and Brooklyn Arts Council in 2019. She has previously collaborated with Jo Wood-Brown, Christina Smiros and Luke Stewart, and others. Parker is also co-founder and collaborator of Inner City Projects, a multimedia collaborative work group with Jo Wood-Brown, based in New York. She lives and works in New York.