Not Gone Yet: On Stage With My People

In her new solo show, multidisciplinary performance artist Benjie Lasseau (daughter of legendary clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman) explores death, aging and the artist’s journey. Benjie grew up in a family of powerful personalities whom she recreates as life sized two-dimensional dolls on wheels. She manipulates these scene partners to reconstruct her past and emerge from the shadows of her family’s constellation. It is a story about the solace of ART and blooming late just before the frost.

Through her unique and whimsical performance art, Benjie Lasseau opens doors to the world of dreams and symbols. With her roots in the visual arts, costumes and sets are an integral part of her vision. Over the past 26 years Benjie has created nine autobiographical solo performances combining movement, text and installations. Her idiosyncratic “sewn paintings” of still lives and portraits were featured alongside Judy Chicago on Bill Moyers' National Television programWomen and Creativity.

In 2022, her recent short film Aquilone (Kite) Two Art Stories was selected by LA Women in Film Festival in 2022 and awarded “Best Female Director” by the New York Independent Cinema, and “Best First Time Filmmaker” by California Indies Festival. Benjie has studied with Anna Deavere Smith, aerial improv artist Terry Sendgraff, modern dancer Anne Bluethenthal, and teacher of ballet and Feldenkrais Augusta Moore. One can see Benjie’s ever changing window art at her house on Russian Hill. An ongoing theme in her work is defining herself as an artist after having grown up with an icon. When she passes the 9 foot portrait of her father Benny Goodman in North Beach, close to her house, she looks up to him and says “See?”

Joyful Raven (Director and Story Midwife) is an award winning actor, director, and “story midwife” known for her powerful and thought-provoking solo shows. Her most recent show Breed or Bust is hot off a critically acclaimed run at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland where it was nominated for an Offey. ★★★★★ “Joyful Raven’s masterful approach to storytelling and exquisite performance skills elevate her work to another level.” - Theatre Weekly Uk. The show was also nominated for Best Comedy at the 2022 Hollywood International Fringe Festival. Her previous show Tales of a Sexual Tomboy won Best of the Fringe at the San Francisco International Fringe Festival 2016 and enjoyed an Off-Broadway run in 2017. She has directed and mentored hundreds of storytellers, co-founded the award-winning theater company Rococo Risqué, and co-authored 4 plays for the Prize of Hope-winning company Human Nature. Joyful studied theater at Sarah Lawrence College in NY and holds an MFA in dramatic art from UC Davis. She teaches regular storytelling and solo theater classes at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater and her own studio in Oakland, CA.