their passion for the arts to young people. I believe in projects that have a reflexive and active component. These projects require participation from those to whom I am reaching out. The art is in the collaboration between knowing and not knowing, between lending experience and experiencing for the first time.

Accidental Truths – a collection of short stories based on grand operas, reinvented in a manner that speaks to youth. Arguably, stories from the grand opera are about the ways we fall down, or the ways others push us. There are villains, bullied, racists, rapists, cold-blooded killers, jealousy, anger, nepotism, ruthless jockeying of power – just about everything older children face in the contemporary world, if not within their own school cultures than through what they see as the callous and self-centered actions of old people. The stories currently a work-in-progress. They find parallels that are relatable and not always pretty but like Grimm’s fairy tales establish cautionary tales. They are IT-based and encourage free-collaboration and active participation, and more importantly, explore the relevance in operas stories while endorsing a forum of free thought about the world at large.

FreeFall – a collaborative effort among professional and non-professional singers in a tag-team effort, using songs to create new operas in a cyber format.