15 September 2015 8pm

Mercer Union is delighted to announce that Lief Hall will be the eleventh guest of our fORUM critical conversation series. Please join us on Tuesday 15 September at 8PM. Doors will open at 7:30. Please note this event will be held at Propeller Coffee Co, 50 Wade Avenue (just around the corner from Mercer, just west of Lansdowne).

Lief Hall’s lecture/performance will interweave storytelling, video collage, live performance and the artist’s own musical compositions to explore how mythology, science fiction and virtual embodiment affect the creation of gender identity within popular culture.

Pulling from Judith Butler’s notion of ‘gender performativity’ and Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto,’ the lecture will explore how performative space is re-shaped through technology, and the integration of cyber-virtual identities. Looking at the work of contemporary female pop stars such as Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Hatsune Miku and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Lief Hall explores how the narratives created in pop music play an important role in the creation of contemporary mythology.

Lief Hall is a composer, singer-songwriter, director/choreographer and creator of opera, musical theatre, video and installation. Hall was previously the vocalist for Vancouver no wave punk band ‘Mutators’ (2007), a vocalist for the improvisational trio ‘Glaciers‘ (2009), and one half of Canadian ‘femme noir’ pop duo MYTHS (2012). Her most recent EP Transform (2015) marks a new direction in her solo musical work, creating dark electronic pop, which merges the experimental dance music with layered vocal harmonies, exploring themes of love, identity, and fear in a post-human world. Hall has performed her solo music alongside artists such as Bear in Heaven and Inga Coupland and was named on NME’s list of ’50 Brand New Artists Set to Storm in 2015′.

Her interdisciplinary installation and performance works explore themes of nature, technology and the body as they relate to mythology, feminism and the production of cultural ideology. In 2005 Hall completed her BFA at Emily Carr University, and has since presented work at VIVO Media Arts Centre, Simon Fraser University (both Vancouver, 2012), Or Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, and 221A Gallery, (all Vancouver 2013).

fORUM is a monthly series of talks, lectures, interviews, screenings and performances at Mercer Union.  Free as always.