Moving Body
Salons
JOIN the Moving Body Salon Live on Zoom
And support SAVE the SPACE MBR campaign!!!
Friday, April 9th
6 pm – 8:30 pm (EST)
Donation: $25 suggested,
All amounts large and small are meaningful.
Register & Donate NOW!
Send your donation with an email address to
receive a link for the upcoming April 9th Salon!
Thank you for supporting SAVE the SPACE MBR!
Moving Body Salon performers are diversifying yet still include old favorites. Read below to get inspired by their creative talents to be shared on April 9th via Zoom, hosted by Mary Abrams!
Performers include:
Amanda Lacson—writer/playwright, Derek O’Connor—singer/songwriter, Bobbie Ellis—writer/poet, Mike Alvarez—writer, Norman Salant—singer/songwriter, David Belmont—writer/musician, John Bianculli—jazz pianist, and Mary Abrams—dancer/choreographer!
Photos and bios below.
Each performance lasts apx. 10 min. with 5 min. of audience exchange. From the comfort of your home, you can join us Salon-style with your favorite beverages and noshes. Join the whole event, come and go as you please…..the more the merrier to celebrate another new season and support MBR with an evening of inspiring music, dance, poetry, prose, song, and communion! Once you send your donation with your email address, you will receive Zoom info to join the Salon!
PERFORMER BIOS
Derek O’Connor (center) is an Irish singer/songwriter from the wild North of England who grew up on Jim Reeves, The Clash, Enrico Caruso and Irish rebel songs. He has been living in New York City for 25 years. He writes and plays for the UK folk-punk band The Hillbilly Troupe and for an independent theatre company, bringing to life local histories. His songs are grounded in a strong transatlantic tradition while mining personal experiences with a painterly abstraction. https://thehillbillytroupe.bandcamp.com/album/the-hillbilly-troupe-2
Amanda Faye Lacson, MA is a writer, photographer, personal biographer as founder of FamilyArchive Business, a studio designed to meet the family at any point in their archiving process. Amanda’s love for preserving family stories came from a young age, when she borrowed her parents’ typewriter to record her mom’s family tree on onion skin paper. Born in the U.S., her parents and older sister are immigrants from the Philippines. She is fascinated with immigrant kitchens from all over the world, and how our ancestors held onto their cultural traditions while incorporating tastes and techniques from their new homeland. Amanda has done research and writing on the myth of romantic love, and currently co-creates the podcast Goddard in the World, with Casey Caronna https://goddardalumni.com/podcast/.
https://www.amandafayelacson.com
Dr. Mike Alvarez is Postdoctoral Diversity and Innovation Scholar at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches end of life communication. He is the author of The Paradox of Suicide and Creativity (Rowman & Littlefield), and lead author of the forthcoming book: A Plague for Our Time: Dying and Death in the Age of Covid-19 (McFarland). He has also completed a memoir recounting his past struggle with mental health and suicide titled, A Color of Dusk.
John Bianculli is a lyrical and soulful pianist, composer and recording artist. John’s dynamic original music is a unique blend of jazz, Latin, Brazilian, rhythm and blues, and world music. His original music can be heard on Telarc and Dream Box records. His song “Bittersweet” made the Contemporary Jazz Charts top-ten list. His music can also be heard on “Jazz Showcase,” a major internationally released CD that is a compilation of Telarc’s greatest jazz recordings.
For 35 years Bobbie Ellis has been deeply committed to inquiring through the wisdom of the body, yoga, Continuum, expressive movement therapy, and the creative process. She has been a poet and writer since she was able to talk. Among her influences are Mary Oliver, Rebecca Elson, and David Bowie. www.somactr.com
David Belmont—David Belmont is a mixed media artist and community organizer living in New York City. He writes memoir, short fiction and poetry, as well as instrumental music. His work has appeared in The Poeming Pigeon, Wildflower Muse and FishFood Magazine. World Gone Zoom, a collection of his poems, will be published by The Poetry Box in May, 2021. He is currently co-music director of the Castillo Theatre. He has been a professional musician for 50 years. His publicly available recorded output since 1999 can be found on Spotify, iTunes and amazon. You can find his blog at: https://davidbelmontwriter.wordpress.com
Norman Salant—is a NYC singer/songwriter whose songs are an attempt to put a face on the most moving elements of life. They are songs for today, melodious, intricate, with lyrical wordplay and larger themes, poetic imagery and abstract impressions; above all honest. Deceptively complex Norman’s songs reconstitute all the music he’s ever heard from the Beatles to Coltrane to Dylan to Philip Glass, into something fresh and new. Pop songs, yes, but radically different than any particular genre might produce. www.normansalant.com
Mary Abrams dances inside-out, outside-in, all around and through life. Her 33-year tour in NYC includes choreography and performance at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Dia Center for the Arts, Dixon Place, Ethnic Folk Arts, Movement Research at Judson Church, other venues she can’t remember, streets around the downtown finance district, the waterfronts, and most currently Salons at Moving Body Resources. Starting out with tap, jazz, & ballet in Mason City, IA, Mary holds a BA in Dance from St. Olaf College and for 27 years has been immersing herself in the fluid breath/sound movement inquiry of Continuum and other somatic movement practices.