Out musician, composer and performer Michael Harren has found a way to incorporate his animal activism into his art with “The Animal Show,” a multi-media performance that uses humor and candor to illustrate why it is important to keep animals safe.
Harren was inspired to explore the relationships among humans and animals in his music during a residency at Tamerlaine Farm Animal Sanctuary.
“I’m an animal-rights activist and a longtime vegan, and I wanted to do some work about animals,” he said. “I kind of struggled with it for a little while. It was hard to start writing something without it sounding preachy or cheesy. So the idea came to me when I was visiting this big animal sanctuary to try to do a residency where I would be working with animals and having experiences that I could then write about. I like doing electronic music too so I did a lot of recording of different sounds from the sanctuary and created a lot of the sounds that are in the show from those recordings. It’s a combination of storytelling and music and video. I worked hard to make them present my perspective of why I choose to be vegan and do a lot of animal advocacy. It presents my perceptions and experiences as a way to illustrate to people how I see animals as individuals.”
Harren, who is based out of Brooklyn, spends a lot of his time touring as a pianist with Sandra Bernhard and also serves as the musical director for Cabaret with a Cause.
Performing with Bernhard has had a profound influence on his musical and performing style.
“When I play for her, it’s generally piano stuff,” he said. “I took a lot of stuff from working with her more in how I approach my performances. I came from a really classical piano background before I started the work I do now, and I was very rigid about playing the exact notes that were on the page. And she has a more relaxed approach to performing. The shows are always great. The stories will always be the same but how she tells the stories varies and her flexibility and ability to improvise really influenced me a lot.”
Now that his Nov. 16 performance at The Rotunda is over, Harren said he will take a break from doing shows to commit “The Animal Show” to tape and print.
“My next step is to not perform for a while and record an album of the music from the show and a book with the stories and photographs from the various sanctuaries I’ve visited,” he said. “So I’ll be releasing that in the spring.”
Michael Harren performs “The Animal Show” 8 p.n. Nov. 16 at The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St. For more information, visit www.michaelharren.com.