Lenelle Moïse
“Lenelle Moïse brings fierce passion.”
-The New York Times
"Piercing, covering territory both intimate and political...vivid & powerful."
-Curve Magazine
POETRY
Hailed "a masterful performer" by getunderground.com, Lenelle Moïse is a "culturally hyphenated pomosexual poet" who creates politicized texts about being bi-cultural (Haitian-American) and the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality and resistance. She recites from scrolls, from memory and with movement. In addition to featured performances in a number of theatres, bookstores and cafes, Lenelle regularly performs her acclaimed autobiographical one-woman show Womb-Words, Thirsting at colleges across the country. Her debut CD Madivinez is now available!
THEATRE
In July 2008, Women Center Stage at the Culture Project presented EXPATRIATE, her critically-acclaimed two-woman play with all-vocal music off-Broadway (click HERE to read the New York Times review). Her other plays include: Matermorphosis, an adaptation of Kafka's "Metamorphosis" commissioned by Serious Play Theatre Ensemble; Little Griot, a youth play about masculinity commissioned by the Drama Studio; The Many Faces of Nia, a two-act comedy about stereotypes and Black-Jewish relations; Cornered in the Dark, a choreopoem about the psychological aftermath of sexual assault; and Purple, a youth play about dating violence commissioned by the Kitchen Theatre Company. She was also commissioned to contribute 25 poems & monologues to We Got Issues, a "performance-based dialogue" on young women and voting produced by Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda and the Next Wave of Women in Power. Lenelle earned her MFA in Playwriting from Smith College in 2004 and is a member of the Dramatist Guild of America, Inc. As an actor, she has toured with Chrysalis Theatre Ensemble, the People's Poetry Theatre and Enchanted Circle Theatre. She was also seen off-Broadway at the Culture Project in the ensemble cast of Rebel Voices, a play based on the book Voices of a People's History of the United States co-edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.
PROSE
Lenelle is a regular blogger for OurChart.com, a networking site launched by the creators of the L-Word. Her essays are featured in several anthologies, including: WORD WARRIORS: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution and We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists. Her articles have also been published in The F-Word Zine and Velvetpark Magazine.
FILM & VIDEO
At age 20 Lenelle co-wrote Sexual Dependency, Bolivian director Rodrigo Bellot's feature film debut about cross-cultural machismo and U.S. media influence on the youth of the global south. Currently out on DVD, the film won the International Film Critics' Award at the Locarno International Film Festival (Switzerland) and has since been screened and awarded in dozens of festivals and cinemas on four continents. She also wrote and starred in Mara Alper's short experimental video To Erzulie which premiered at the Berlin Sommerfest der Literaturen in July 2002. Lenelle completed her own experimental shorts Blue Passersby Eyes and Atlantic Soul. Her self-produced music video Pied Piper was an official selection of the International Museum of Women's 2007 Online Film Festival. Her distinct voice is featured in to Step by Step: Keeping the Arts Alive, a 30-minute documentary by Julie Akeret.
HONORS & AWARDS
2008 Black Women Playwrights Group Whisper Laugh Shout Award
2008 Hedgebrook/ New WORLD Theater Writing Residency
2007 Patchwork Majority Radio Award for Best Solo Album: Madivinez
2006 Gaea Foundation Sea Change Residency
2006 Astraea Loving Lesbians Award for Poetry
2004 Drammy for Best Ensemble Acting: Cornered in the Dark
2004 & 2003 James Baldwin Memorial Award in Playwriting
2003 New WORLD Theater Poetry Slam Champion
2001 & 2000 National Poetry Slam competitor with Team Ithaca, NY
VISUAL ART
Lenelle has started to experiment with collage as a form of nonlinear storytelling. In December 2007, the self-taught artist first presented her collection “URBAN WINGS” in a group show at the Hosmer Gallery in Northampton, MA. See the slideshow below for a glimpse of these alternately meditative and whimsical, vibrant mixed media works.
Photo by Vanessa Vargas/ Goldenhand Photography