Constance Cooper to Perform Solo Set of Poems at the Bowery Poetry Club, 9/14

On September 14, 2014, Constance Cooper will appear as a soloist in the 9/11 Cultural Festival in a solo set of poems about violence and loss by the Polish Nobel-prizewinning poet Wyslawa Szymborska. Miss Cooper will play her signature setup, a piano and an electric keyboard tuned a quartertone apart, used for its remarkable ability to capture the elusive quasi-pitches of the speaking voice.

Constance Cooper has created several theater and poetry collaborations this year. Last March, she appeared with the mime Andrea Clinton in a non-stop, three-hour duo improvisation based on "A Dream Within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe at the famous Carlton Arms Hotel annual art exhibit. Miss Cooper and Miss Clinton collaborated previously on Poe's "The Raven" at New York's Poe Visitor Center.

In June and July, Miss Cooper was the keyboards improviser for Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell" at the Medicine Show Theater. In mid-July, she composed and improvised the music for "Walt Whitman Opera" at the underground zero festival in New York.

Miss Cooper has a long history in spontaneous composition. Since composing for the First Avenue Ensemble, and helping to found the Downtown Ensemble, she has included improvisation in many of her written works and has formed the improvising trios ArtStar (with guitar bass, and live-action painting) and Arc Welding (a unique a cappella, acoustic, free-improvisation women's vocal trio).

The Bowery Arts + Science is a non-profit organization with a venue - Bowery Poetry - in downtown Manhattan. Their mission is to encourage cooperation among and advancement of artists and cultural workers; to develop and produce works by emerging poets and performers; and to promote the exploration, improvement, and advancement of the arts as a changemaking force in society.

CONSTANCE COOPER, keyboards-vocals improviser and performance artist, presents poetry by Wyslawa Szymborska (Eng. translation: Baranczak & Cavanagh) on Sunday, September 14, 2014 from 6pm to 9pm at the Bowery Poetry Club at Bowery Arts + Science, 308 Bowery, New York, NY.