Laetitia Sonami

Composer, performer, and sound installation artist Laetitia Sonami was born in France and settled in the United States in 1975 to pursue her interest in the emerging field of electronic music. She has studied with Eliane Radigue, Joel Chadabe, Robert Ashley and David Behrman. Her signature instrument, the Lady’s Glove, is fitted with a vast array of sensors which track the slightest motion of her enigmatic dance: with it Sonami can create performances where her movements can shape the music and in some instances visual environments. Sonami’s sound installations combine audio and kinetic elements embedded in ubiquitous objects such as light bulbs, rubber gloves, purses, and more recently toilet plungers. In her workshops and classes, she tries to enthuse students into adapting old technologies and new media to the creative process and thus expand their field of imagination and play. Sonami has been performing in numerous festivals across the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and China, among which the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the Bourges Music Festival in France, the Sonambiente Festival in Berlin, the Interlink festival in Japan, Bang-on-a Can, The Kitchen and Other Minds, S.F. Awards include the Alpert Award in the Arts (2002), Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award (2000), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2000), Studio Pass-Harvestworks residency (2001) and a Creative Work Fund award (2000) for a collaboration with Nick Bertoni and the Tinkers Workshop. Sonami lives in Oakland, California and is guest lecturer at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Milton Avery MFA program at Bard College. http://sonami.net/

Laetitia will be collaborating as part of Jeanne Liotta's TEA performance at the exhibition opening on February 18th.

Project Statement: TEA is an intimate performance based on a Japanese tea ceremony with projection, shadows, smoke, and tea. Performed by Jeanne Liotta with live sound by Oakland artist Laetitia Sonami.

The tea smoke
and the willow
together trembling
-ISSA