A Spoken Concept Album 

with Original Soundtrack exploring the feminine perspective through Shakespeare’s Words recontexualized

 

 

 

  Please contact to order CD/digital download or if you have interest in this Project’s Visual/Performance future. 

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Welcome!

For 35 years I have had Shakespeare’s words inside my mind, body and heart. Having the great fortune of being a part of many productions of his plays,  I would hear his words surround me not only on stage, but through the speakers of the green room, dressing room or in the wings waiting to enter onto the stage. Teaching others to hear, speak and connect to these words –  trying to share this experience of being more than you are without them – has been my life’s work.  His women – vulnerable, clever, strong, vicious, magical, resentful, scheming, generous, funny and sometimes abused – became a part of me. They represented every woman or Everywoman. And this is when I felt compelled to explore the canon differently; out of context, in a timeless landscape, focusing only the the words and thoughts of his women.

Corliss

 

 

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Current and ongoing

 

The second phase for the project is an installation. We have added video to accompany the sound created in our initial CD.  This has led us down a haunting and thought provoking rabbit hole.  A place where the words from the past reveal truths in our present and premonitions of our future. 

 

 

  Section from  Movement 5 “Hell Hath no Fury” from  our visual project!

Enjoy

UNDER YOUR SPELL:CODA from I GRANT I AM A WOMAN 

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 THANK YOU to all our Kickstarter Supporters for helping us launch a successful campaign!

 

 Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/IGIAAW

 Interview with Kenneth Jones

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 Information on

Artists, Development and Tracks

I GRANT I AM A WOMAN was initially conceived as (and hopes to still become)  an ensemble/choral piece for women with projections.  After successfully collaborating on various projects,  Corliss Preston, Michelle Shupe, and John Slywka felt the piece could also be well presented as an aural feast on CD.   I GRANT I AM A WOMAN is an intriguingly fresh adaptation of the feminine perspective explored through the words of Shakespeare through a collision of artistic styles and adorned by original music.  Smart, funny, emotionally intense, the movements psychologically move through surprising twists and turns.  I GRANT I AM A WOMAN is accessible to someone who has never known the bard, yet there is plenty there to keep the scholars arguing.

 

 

 

 

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Track Information

My initial impulse was inspired by the Greek Chorus – the idea of women “as one”.  As I pulled lines from Shakespeare’s canon, I tried to keep everything in verse.  Each track has its own identity and style.  They are in a specific order, but are also meant to stand alone with a unique stamp and feel.           Corliss

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PART 1

Prologue – I Grant I Am a Woman

The inspiration for this track was “who are we?”  Women. What words did Shakespeare give his female characters to describe themselves? Also – who we are not.  We are defined by our relation to men. There is no yin without the yang.

1st Movement – Unseasoned Justice

We end the Prologue with, “I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving,” This movement explores women in a patriarchal world.  We start with mothers grieving for their sons and their powerlessness to help them, then shift into “mercy and justice” ending with a spoken duet in different courtrooms.  Our fates legally begin defined and controlled by the majority of men.

2nd Movement – Talk You of Killing?

Since we end with the sound of a prison door closing from the previous movement, we took it a step further.  It is the most “out there” track in terms of content and free association.  I explored the use of the word “kill” and looked for lines from the canon containing this word.  It led to this prison scenario.  Just go with the flow.  Trauma is introduced (individual, intergenerational and collective) and centers on women turning on women. The idea of “prison” being both literal and figurative – internal and external.   The movement ends with the “Willow Song”  from OTHELLO  – reaching compassion and understanding through examples of repression and abuse against women globally.

 Part 2

3rd Movement – Wives Intuition

Is it an old wives tale or is it intuition?  That “itch” and feeling that is owned by the feminine.  I love these intuitive impulses so beautifully written for his “wives” creating such compassionate and fleshed-out women.  The warning signs of what we cannot explain in a logical world.  Also the simple acknowledgment that men might be past our “understanding” as well as fear of the destructive masculine and the complexity of “relationship”.   We end this movement with another spoken duet while in the background you hear drums and trumpet representing the masculine presence turning it into a quartet of sounds.

4th Movement – Love Can Make You C R A Z Y

The theme of LOVE is not an unexplored one and certainly Shakespeare has opened that door in ways that make us all swoon.  We have tried to take the journey in an inventive way and totally out of context.  Women falling.  Their love is all consuming.  Exploring the way in which women are taught about love through romantic notions that do not prepare us for a real sexual world.   Even when it is not amorous love, it is always felt deeply and with the whole soul.  Unfortunately, this does not always end well.  

 Part 3

5th Movement – Hell Hath No Fury…

Well, who ever wrote revenge and vengeance better?  We explored the power that he infused in his female voices, giving them masculine qualities and, in direct contrast to the 1st movement where they are “trapped” within the patriarchal structure, here they embrace it, unsex themselves and become “other”.  

Epilogue – Immortals’ Words

The epilogue is the birds eye view.  Shakespeare gives some of his female voices beautiful all-seeing lines of prophesy and wisdom.  The exploration expands to mankind and how destructive we can be.  Can we wash away and relearn and start all over?

Epitaph – Immortal Words

The voice of Shakespeare coming back in this sonnet to remind us that he created these words and by doing so has given his characters everlasting life.  Art is our saving grace allowing us to expand our understanding of each other and the world in which we live.  To create is inherently feminine.

 

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MY COLLABORATORS

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Slywka is a musician, recording engineer, as well as a composer and sound designer. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. He has been a 25 year voting member of NARAS and is affiliated with ASCAP.

He was composer and sound designer with Corliss Preston for Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” in Washington D.C. for the Taffety Punk Theater Company, with Michelle Shupe directing. In 2012, he contributed to “Minminzemmi” on Julie Slick’s “Terroir” CD. In the fall 2013, he wrote the soundtrack for the Shakespeare Project of Chicago’s readings of “The Merchant Of Venice”. Early in 2014, he composed the soundtrack to the Marissa Chibas’ short film, “Clandestino“.

As a recording engineer his credits include: John Denver, Jon Secada, Placido Domingo, Lissette, Basilio, Dois No Choro (Julie Koidin & Paulinho Garcia), Shape Shifter (the video game), plus a mountain of jingles and demos. John also contributed live concert video footage to Ian Gillan’s (vocalist of Deep Purple) CD/DVD “Gillan’s Inn – Tour Edition” and promotional footage for Wings’ Laurence Juber, and others.

He’s also found time to interview music artists about their work for RockAndMetal.com, and MusicPortal.com (Steve Vai, Mike Keneally, California Guitar Trio, Aristocrats’ Bryan Beller, Julie Slick).

As a performer, he most recently played with “Band On the Run” (a Paul McCartney & Wings tribute), and currently playing electric bass in a duo.

 

Michelle Shupe has worked as a professional actress (theatre, voice-over, television) for the past 20 years. Based in Washington, DC for years and then branching out to New York and beyond, Michelle has been in many Shakespeare plays (some, several times) and is particularly fond of the lesser known works.  She has taught with ETC and The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, is an alumi of WSC Avant Bard and continues to coach privately.

Since relocating to Chicago, Michelle found an interest in directing as well as acting and was able to see her rendition of What You Will (12th Night) come to fruition at Taffety Punk Theatre Company in Washington, DC. She also served as dramaturge for The Shakespeare Project of Chicago for 4 amazing and informative seasons.

Michelle was trained at the University of Northern Colorado, Circle in the Square, and by many talented mentors and artists.

 

 

GUEST ARTISTS

Stephen Dillane is a British Stage/TV and Film Actor currently starring as Stannis Baratheon in GAMES OF THRONES on HBO and Detective Karl Roebuckin in THE TUNNEL on Sky Atlantic in the UK and Canal+ in France. Wikipedia bio on link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Dillane

 

Flutist Julie Koidin is a native of the Chicago area. She performs regularly in two Chicago based ensembles – Ondas and Dois no Choro, and also performs internationally, with violinist David Johnson (Germany) and with Choro de Lá pra Cá (Brazil). She is the recipient of six Fulbright teaching and/or research grants (Brazil (2), Norway, New Zealand, Serbia, and Sweden). She has written over twenty articles and is the author of the book, “Os Sorrisos do Choro” and its English translation, “Choro Conversations.” She received her master’s and doctorate in flute performance from Northwestern University and teaches at the University of Illinois Chicago and at Triton College, as well as privately.

http://www.juliekoidin.com

Guitarist Paul Richards of the California Guitar Trio.

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PRIOR COLLABORATION –

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12thNight at Taffety Punk Theatre in DC – 2013

Listen to Interview with Michelle about 12th Night