Zea Barker: Biography
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Zea was born and raised in rural Vermont and put in twelve years in Boston. (seven months of transience and counting) She received a B.F.A. in Theatre from Boston University. She is a self-taught animator, clothing designer, and a student of the Michael Pope school of film production. She was able to nurture these new skills during her four years in residence at the Cloud Club; a support network for artists in multiple disciplines in Boston's South End. Sporatic  boughts of washing Blue Man's dirty socks Pirate Jenny style keep her in her wheaties and travel shenanigans. 
Zea's true passion is improvisation.  She is excited by the daily navigation of human existence, the thrill of live performance and the off-the-cuff nature of meticulously handcrafted animation. Her approach to dance, physical comedy and drawing are all as immediate as possible. Constant surprises. Production design leaves less room for such things, but any sliver of opportunity will be taken.
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Photo: Stephen Martin
Zea is a designer, performer and filmmaker. Drawing inspiration from the surreal and comic works of Warner Brother's cartoons, Silent Film Comedy Legends, Comic book artists, butoh practicioners,  flamboyant opera singers, the geniuses of public daily life and her own filthy bucket of innards, she seeks to create a lens through which we can fearlessly witness our own humanity and learn to take ourselves less seriously.  Zea, herself, still has work to do in that arena as she persists in referring to herself in the third person when nattering on about her work.

Currently, Zea has finished work on a pair of film shorts for Bony Lil. This duet, 'Bony Lil's Creation & Distraction' is black and white super8 film integrating live-action, stop-motion and hand-drawn animation and is directed and co-written by Michael Pope.  She has begun directing some small projects, not the least of which is Neptune's first ever music video. Education has begun in the Richard Pochinko clown tradition with the master clown teacher, Sue Morrison. Zea has completed 'Clown Through Mask' and 'Joey and Auguste'. She also performed in the NY Clown Theatre Festival in September. Newly imported to the thriving arts city, Chicago, she and two clown cohorts have been accepted to create a theater piece for an expermental theater series in the summer. Live screening of the short films in the spring... ....scheming scheming...