User:Jamesavatar

James Avatar is an African-American multimedia artist, his talents ranging from music & theater production to video editing and online content creation. His commitment to the aesthetic evolution of contemporary music and film is evidenced by his authorship of thousands of "underground" audio recordings, independently and in collaboration with other artists and studios.

80's

After graduating High School in Westchester, NY, James began his career as writer/performer for the STREET THEATER performance troupe in White Plains, NY where he displayed exceptional talents in script development and music theater production. He then became involved with the inception, development and performance of New Media art with a concentration on MIDI technology and drum machine programming. Soon after his experience with musical theater he found himself employed as a ghostwriter for early Hip Hop record labels at the dawn of the genre.

Building upon these experiences, he founded the Electro-punk/Hip Hop music group AVATAR BLUE which thrived in New York's underground music club scene at venues such at The Pyramid, Save The Robots, and Wetlands. Driven by an attraction to New York's underground art scene, new media technology and the Apple 2Se personal computer, he found his way on a panel beside Jupiter communication CEO Josh Harris and became one of the many "artistic consultants" present for the development of PSEUDO.COM's first online webcast.

90's

Dedicated to tutoring and mentorship in Art and New Media disciplines, James has served in this capacity as an Artist-in-Residence at State University of New York at Purchase (music & experimental theater). After collaborating in New York with Boston theater producer GREG ALLEN, he relocated to Boston where he served as staff producer for the recording studio DOWNTOWN RECORDERS. During this time he also served as an artist-in-residence at Babson College (Babson dance Ensemble; choreography) and was nominated for a Boston Music Award for "Outstanding Rap Act".

Shortly after this, James lost a legal dispute and the band AVATAR BLUE to another producer. Undaunted, he co-founded a dance music act named SoulTech and released a single called "Step Into The Future", collaborating with with Boston DJ Wendell Edmons and engineer Peter Cheung.

After being the open mic master of ceremonies for the (now defunct) Boston venue VENUS DE MILO, James joined forces with keyboardist/producer Dot Bustello and singer/songwriter Cica and merged SoulTech into a live band, playing clubs in the Boston underground.

After six years in Boston, James returned to New York, joining forces with Russian classical pianist Philip Gelbach and produced the Jazz/Electronica music group Filter Kingz for the independent Australian record label Odessa Mama Entertainment. Shortly after producing 2 albums for FILTER KINGZ, James became the music director for a dot com start-up called VISIONARY MEDIA which produced the online animated series WHIRLGIRL, the flagship programming for Viacom's online site SHO.COM.

2000-Present

After the Dot Com Crash of the 90's, James co-founded the New York artist collective Brooklyn Media Lab (BML) along with multimedia artisians Teresa Haefele (web design), Charlotte Gaspard (theater) and Ursula Wing (graphic arts). James served as BML's music director and public relations rep and founded the collective's flagship music act, a 13-piece soul music ensemble called Chronic Electronic Orchestra (CEO).

On March 7th, 2003 James produced an exhibit at the Chelsea Arts Museum in New York called "TranceSpace" for the Sonic Self Exibition, curated by Jolanta Gora-Wita. This was to be the first of many live multimedia events produced by James & BML until the untimely death of Albanian recording artist ANITA BITRI in 2004, who James was producing an English-sung album for. This tragic incident and a downwardly spiraling post-911 economy caused a diaspora within BML and the firebrand New York art collective became defunct shortly thereafter.

James reconnected with co-producer Philip Gelbach and produced 2 more albums for FILTER KINGZ and Odessa Mama Entertainment. Their unique and soulful "Triphop" sound prompted Australian Exero HDTV producer KOSTAS METAXAS to partner a deal with Odessa Mama featuring Filter Kingz as the backing music for European television shows "The Stylist" and "The Kings Of.." Info-tainment series.

In 2006 Mr. Avatar worked as Doorman/Greeter for a entertainment venue in the Red hook section of Brooklyn, NY (apropriatley named "THE HOOK") and soon after became the club's first online social networking coordinator. After recieving a great deal of hits from a YouTube video of a kid band singing Nirvana, James later became songwriter for them and another "Kindie" (Kid-Indie) rock band favorite in Brooklyn called "Audra Rox", fronted by charasmatic music teacher/ Indie rock performer AUDRA SANTOS.

Recently, James taught an After School class for the Tompkins Square Middle School in new York's lower east side, creating a program called "Multimedia Tech", a fun and informative class teaching basic concepts in online marketing, video editing, podcasting and blogwriting. The course resulted in a class blog called "The Whoa Show" with corresponding social media sites. After completing the class he toured across the US, performing a improvisational street theater project called "The Fairytale Experiment", a collaboration with BML alum Charlotte Gaspard.

James Avatar currently lives in New Orleans Louisiana and works as a social networking coordinator for the French Quarter Wedding Chapel and is developing a new music project with Chronic Electronic Orchestra. He is also currently in production of a new multimedia stage play to be featured at FRINGE NYC in 2011, which chronicles his many colorful experiences "below the radar" of the entertainment industry.