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The latest experiments from the Underworld Alchemy Laboratory.
We Will Not Be Composed
We Will Not Be Composed is a multimedia performance created in collaboration with saxophonist and composer Stevie Manning, author and activist Soraya Chemaly, and projection artist Xuan to challenge gendered perceptions of anger in America. Audience members simultaneously experience a live performance of a musical score by Manning, projections of light and texture from Xuan, and recorded voices of women expressing their experiences with and ideas about anger in immersive Spatial Audio. Whether these expressions are startling, familiar, or provoking, audience members discover how collective recognition and expression of anger in the face of abusive power and domination can become a catalyst for justice and change.
*This short excerpts from the premiere cannot capture the full spectrum of the spatial audio experienced by the audience, in which the voices were mapped to a 38 channel ambisonic sound system and Wave Field Synthesis.
The Ensemble:
Stevie Manning: Alto saxophone, composer
Suzanne Farrin: ondes Martenot
Jessica Ackerley: electric guitar
Ha-Yang Kim: Violoncello
rocío sánchez: Violoncello
Devon Gates: Double bass
Curated by Amadeus Julian Regucera for EMPAC
October 23rd 2025, Studio 1 at EMPAC in Troy, New York. Photo courtesy of EMPAC.
The Voices:
Jamia Wilson is the author of This Book is Feminist and Roadmap for Revolutionaries.
Annie Delgado is finally learning to embrace her rage without apology after nearly half a century.
Jaclyn Friedman, Founder & Executive Director, EducateUS.
Renee Bracey Sherman is an abortion activist and co-author of Liberating Abortion: Claiming Our History, Sharing Our Stories, and Building the Reproductive Future We Desire.
R.O. Kwon, author of Exhibit and The Incendiaries and co-editor of Kink.
Tara Jaye Frank, a leadership and culture consultant who builds bridges between people and ideas, and is the author of The Waymakers and You Are Before the World.
Marcie Bianco is a writer, editor, cultural critic, and author of Breaking Free: the Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom (Public Affairs, 2023).
Cindy Gallop is the founder & CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn — ‘Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference.
Mona Eltahaway is a feminist author and disruptor of patriarchy.
Koritha Mitchell is a literary historian, cultural critic, and author of From Slave Cabins to the White House.
Rebecca Nagle is an award-winning journalist and citizen of Cherokee Nation.
Anonymous
Anonymous
We Will Not Be Composed received 2020 and 2021 awards from the MAP Fund, which is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Manning began composing the score during a five-week period in the fall/winter of 2021 as a Composition Fellow at MacDowell in Peterborough, NH.
The musical score for this work is supported by a 2021 NYSCA Composer Commission.
Transmuting Anger
Transmuting Anger is a series of melodic fragments cued by alchemy symbols and tied together with improvised music, focused on the exploration of women's anger around #metoo, sexism and sexual harassment. The work premiered on January 12th, 2018 as part of the NYC Winter Jazzfest and was performed with different instrumentation at the Earshot Jazz Festival on October 30th, 2018.
Sarah Manning (alto saxophone, composer) Briggan Krauss (guitar) Ha-Yang Kim (cello, Earshot) Simon Jermyn (electric bass, Winter Jazzfest) Newman Taylor Baker (drums, Winter Jazzfest) Dylan van der Schyff (drums/percussion, Earshot)
Discography
Live at the Hundred Years Gallery, London.
Sarah Manning: alto saxophone (acoustic) | Alex Ward: guitar (electric)
On May 11th, 2017, Brooklyn-based saxophonist Sarah Manning and London-based guitarist Alex Ward met for the first time at the Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton, East London. They descended underground into the long and narrow basement, where even the slightest sounds reverberated off the brick walls and concrete floor. With silver-plated brass shaped on a mandrel nearly a century ago, and wood amplified and refined by magnets, copper wire, and electric circuitry, they extracted urgent new music in the presence of visual art and a live audience.
Recorded live at the Hundred Years Gallery by Alex Ward on May 11th, 2017. Mixed and mastered by Alex Ward at Stowaway Studios, London. Released September 4th, 2020 on Copeload Records.
"Venturing into wide open spaces that occasionally recall the folk-tilted chamber jazz of guitarist Bill Frisell...A serrated cover of Neil Young's "On the Beach" and Gillian Welch's lilting "I Dream a Highway" further underscore her broad, borderless vision."
- Chris Barton, LA Times Top 10 jazz pick 2014
“A limited amount of signed and personalized copies of Dandelion Clock, Live at Yoshi’s: Two Rooms Same Door, and House on Eddy Street are available directly from the artist.”
