POET PROVOCATEUR

"AN IRON FIST IN A SLOWLY-REMOVED VELVET GLOVE."--MOONEY ON THEATRE

Janice Jo Lee is a dynamic artist. She is a second generation Korean-Canadian settler based in Tkaronto (Toronto), Ontario. She is a folk-soul-jazz singer songwriter, composer-sound designer, spoken word poet, theatre maker, and arts and anti-oppression facilitator.

Lee’s artwork has always been one with her activism. Her songs, poems and plays are immersed in issues of gender empowerment, community, climate change, the environment and antiracism. On stage she performs spoken word pieces and songs built on layers of cascading harmonies. With her guitar, looping pedal, trumpet, Korean janggu drum, disarmingly funny candour and poetically-rich lyrics, Lee commands the stage. She conjures warm energy, asks questions about our times, and leaves audiences rejuvenated and aglow.

Born in Toronto to a Korean immigrant family, she grew up riding bikes, singing in choir, and preferred soccer to her piano lessons. By the time she graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University with a major in English Literature and minor in Political Science, she was a songwriter performing locally with The Radical Choir. It was in this collective that Lee began her early practice as a folk musician - leading sing-alongs, composing songs inspired by local issues, and performing in community.

In the first ten years of her career in Kitchener-Waterloo she steered the emergence of its next generation of spoken word poets as the director of the KW Poetry Slam. As a folk music producer, she cultivated the local scene as a series curator and programmer. As an outspoken activist and organizer she brought forward uncomfortable conversations around racism and white supremacy in the local social justice culture and queer community. More at the official bio !

Supporting the show is the awesome Richard Garvey. 7pm. $10 Advance, $15 Door!