Biography

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Wendy Lisa Katz
Saint Louis, Missouri
documentary filmmaker, artist, bassist, and director for stage productions
Tags: Advocacy  cinema verite  Docs about families  education  ethics  Experimental Documentaries  Health and Healthcare Issues  ida fiscal sponsorship program  Leacock, Richard  personal documentaries  political/social issue documentaries  women in documentary  women's issues  
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Supplementary Information
Title/Occupation:  Composer  Consultant  Director  Editor  Educator  Executive  Grant Writer  Producer  Researcher  Writer 
Services Provided:  None 
Gender: Female
Race: None

Biography: 

Wendy Lisa Katz –

The universality of beginnings is the inspiration for my work as an artist, composer of electronic music, and innovator in conceptual multimedia and video. This focus culminates in the fusion of art and technology for gallery installations and theatre. The mounting of my creation, Dust, Beginnings, Babble and Beats [DBBB], for a theatrical ensemble of dancers, baby babblers, and percussionists, may have been the first artistic use of fiber optics for the stage.

Ricky Leacock, one of the pioneers of cinéma vérité and a mentor, collaborated with me on filming the rehearsals as well as the second mounting of DBBB for the documentary, DUST. Currently, the work in progress As always, SPK, sponsored by [ida], fsp 3660, is in part an homage to Ricky's life and legacy.

Other video work has been seen in the United States and Brazil, was sponsored by Legacy Productions, and has been in juried exhibitions and invitationals. My photography can be found in collections on three continents. Awards received include the Rockefeller Foundation/the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Award through GPIA-SWAMP, Houston, Texas; Missouri Arts Council's Creative Artist Award; and a commission by New Music Circle with additional funding through the Lum Foundation for MoonBow Echoes. I was founder, director, and contrabassist for Baroque Ensemble 415; and I have performed with Nic McGegan, Trevor Pinnock, Leonard Slatkin, and Strings in the Mountains Music Festival.

My education includes Advanced Graduate studies, MIT, The Media Lab, School of Architecture; MFA, School of Fine Arts, Washington University (WU); BA in Music, WU. As an educator, some of my curriculum development and/or courses taught include comparison of the use of text, numbers and manipulated symbols in painting and glass during the past 1700 years; 20th century innovation in the arts; psychophysiology techniques at Washington University School of Medicine; and private contrabass students. I have a background as a grant writer, researcher, public speaker, and a board member of non-profits.

Starting in the mid-1960's, my advocacy has involved working for social and environmental justice, a radioactive waste policy, dignity in aging and dying, and rights for battered women and teenaged girls (tried as adults) within the judicial and penal systems. In 1983, the St. Louis, MO ABC-affiliate station aired an excerpt from Renz, my documentary on battered women who were imprisoned without parole in a mixed gender medium security facility.