Creative Practice/Critical Inquiry
michelecheng@fas.harvard.edu
Michele Cheng is an interdisciplinary composer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and puppeteer intertwining music, visuals, and theatre to engage with social issues and cultural identities. Through a journalistic approach, she develops creative work that shines light on underrepresented narratives. She collaborates with artists across cultural practices and builds custom instruments and puppets.
She has received commissions, grants, and scholarships from the JACK Quartet, National Sawdust, I Care If You Listen, New Music USA, and Atlantic Center for the Arts. Her work has been featured at Roulette (US), CCRMA (US), LMCML (Canada), ICMC (Chile), ESPACIOS (Argentina), ISSTA (Ireland), Sonorities (UK), eavesdropping (UK), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon (France), AMKL (Poland), NTCH (Taiwan), SICMF (South Korea), and TMAO (Thailand), among others.
She performs on piano, electric bass, percussion, drum set, electronics, and self-built instruments. She has shared the stage with artists including International Contemporary Ensemble, Sō Percussion, Taiko Center of Los Angeles, Antenna Fuzz, Stanford New Ensemble, Ensemble Evolution, Pamela Z, Craig Taborn, Claire Chase, Susie Ibarra, Joshua Rubin, and Levy Lorenzo.
Michele is a cofounder of Meoark, an experimental duo, and fff, a collective led by feminist media artists.