MuMeMahMon
Thursday, March 26, 7:30pm
Automata welcomes Los Angeles musical and performance artists M A Harms and Nelle Anderson for MuMeMahMon, a rough and raw work of body puppetry.
"After years of group improvisations ending with US wrestling on the floor, she/it/we/they are attempting true FusionDisememberment in this Very Serious and Also Playfully Desperate Adventure into that which is the Holy Trinity: SELF, OTHER, and INSTRUMENT. " (---M A Harms and Nelle Anderson)
M A and Nelle met in grad school at CalArts and developed a mutual admiration for each other's unruly body outbursts in musical performances. As instrument guides this de-gloving and re-immersion, Anderson and Harms explore the spectrum of difference, sameness, and inversion between their instruments: M A's drums sing, amplifying voice recordings, and Nelle's voice drums as her body responds to percussive treatment. They will search for answers in every corner of the Automata space—windows, bathroom, basement—while tethered together with scrap cloth marionette strings tied throughout the venue.
About the Artists
M A Harms is a Los Angeles-based composer, performer, and instrument builder who explores the intersections between grief, gender, and sex through a combination of text and sound. Their practice centers performance art and interdisciplinarity, imagining and creating sound using sculptural installations, found objects, electronics, mannequins, and placing equal significance on the visual experience of their work. M navigates literal stories and personal life events via sound practice, obscuring them to the point that they begin to bridge the gap between individual and “universal” experiences. @phenomenologopolis
Nelle June Anderson (nellee, we) are an artist working with voice and social space in opera, punk, improvisation, and metaphysics. We made our operatic debut with the American Symphony Orchestra and have since appeared as a soloist with Juno Award-winning baroque orchestra Ensemble Caprice (Ramiro, Motezuma, North American tour) and Grammy Award-winning PARTCH Ensemble as Marilyn Monroe/S in LSD—Huxley’s Last Trip (LeBaron), for which we “stunned with her buttery tone” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Avant-garde pop productions as SOUBRETTE were praised for their “production trickery” and “graceful experimentation” (Recording Artist Guild). We made our directorial and design debut as an Oracle Egg BROILER Resident Artist in 2024 (BEDROCK, Ivan Cunningham). Improvisational configurations include dance/voice (Neoma Butoh, Electric Lodge Daredevil Festival, Philosophical Research Society); alto saxophone/voice (soundpedro Season Opening 2025); durational performance art (Torrance Art Museum, NOMAD IV/TRYST 2025); looper/voice (Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Matthew McGaughey, Staged.). Nelle have a BA in Classical Voice Performance (Bard College); an MFA in Performer-Composer (California Institute of the Arts); and a Usui-Holy Fire Reiki Master certification. From Minneapolis, based in Detroit. Up next: LA Opera Fest with Overtone Industries (April 2026). @nellejanderson