Love Songs

Dear Artist-Audience,

We, the curators of Love Songs, are thrilled to share this project with you, a digital space as performance and as artwork, which can hold a whole world of possibilities for expression and experimentation. In the fall of 2019, we discovered the work of artist and poet Mina Loy (thanks Katherine Profeta!) and became particularly inspired by her poem in 34 parts, "Songs to Joannes." Using the poem as a jumping off point, we’ve endeavored to create a space for collaboration — not only between artists but also with the audience — in the spirit of Loy’s own experimentation with form. At the time Loy first published the poem (the first four sections in 1915 and the entire 34-part cycle in 1917), many readers did not know what to make of her work. In the words of her publisher Alfred Kreymbourg, the public believed that “to reduce eroticism to the sty was an outrage, and to do so without verbs, sentence structure, punctuation, even more offensive.”

We have invited artists to take a similarly open approach in their responses, to challenge, manipulate, or flat out ignore the punctuation of performance. Loy’s poem is only the beginning. The “end,” if there is one, is the impact of lighted bodies knocking sparks off each other in chaos…or, it is 34 works by an incredible group of artists from different disciplines and physical locations coming together online for the pleasure of creating and the pleasure of sharing the creative process however we can while we are physically apart.

If you'd like to learn more, get involved, or just say hello, you can email us at minalovesongs@gmail.com or follow our Instagram.

Love (Songs),

Lily Haje & Madeline Pages

Co-Curators: Lily Haje & Madeline Pages

Producer: Natalie King

Artists:

I. Lily Haje & Madeline Pages

II. Bryn Scharenberg

III. Madeline Pages

IV. Emma Pernudi-Moon, with Jiahao (Neil) Qiu (photography)

V. Isuri Wijesundara, with Patrick Falcon (music) & Brandon Burton (additional voice)

VI. Liam Bellman-Sharpe

VII. Lily Haje

VIII. Hannah Tran, with Bryn Scharenberg (music)

IX. Sebastián Eddowes, Hannah Gellman, & Gabrielle Hoyt, with Rebecca Flemister (cinematography)

X. Izzy Natale

XI. Emmie Finckel

XII. Nicholas Orvis, with illustrations by Devin Matlock

XIII. Abigail Onwunali & Nomè SiDone, with Liam Bellman-Sharpe (sound design)

XIV. Bobby Burvant, with Chelsea Gonzalez (additional spoken word)

XV. Ashley Thomas

XVI. Cat Raynor

XVII. Thomas Pang

XVIII. Josef Mehling & Emmie Finckel

XIX. Mattie McGarey, with Bailey Trierweiler (sound design)

XX. Evdoxia Ragkou

XXI. Bobbin Ramsey

XXII. Annie Millican

XXIII. Maggie Brennan

XXIV. Rudi Goblen

XXV. Cordelia Blanchard

XXVI. Christina Johnston

XXVII. Jacob Basri (director), Zac Blumner (animation), Rebecca Kent (voice), & Sadra Tehrani (sound design)

XXVIII. Mina Loy

XXIX. Douglas Robinson & Audrey Ney (performers), Sammy Zeisel (director), Aaron Cooper (cinematography), & Jillian Emerson (music)

XXX. Natalie King

XXXI. Paul Mortilla

XXXII. Rose Meriam (video) & Joey Santia (music)

XXXIII. Cameron Clayborn

XXXIV. Members of the Love Songs Company

Original Graphic Design by Mikayla Johnson

Special Thanks: The Yale Cabaret, Jisun Kim, Camilla Tassi, Madeline Carey, Simon Toop, and Helen Haje

Follow our Instagram (@lovesongsproject) for updates on upcoming releases!

Sections I-VIII were originally performed October 22-24, 2020 @ The Yale Cabaret (program below)