What do you get when you mix burlesque with Jane Austen? Miss Manners with Diamanda Galas? Contrary individualism with strong sense of civic duty? Sheila Bishop is a performer, writer, director, producer, facilitator, presenter, teacher, wanna be video art maker, art house pornographer, nonprofit maven, burnt out activist, Jill of all trades, intellectual, aspiring wensch (mensch with a W) and sassy Southerner. She may be the long lost love child of Ethel Merman, Laurie Anderson and Tallulah Bankhead.
If forced to pick one field of work to plow in, she would be found sweating with all the underpaid and misunderstood performance artists, but others might not put her in that field, because she cannot (will not) dig out the literary roots and the theatrical runners that riddle her work.
Born and raised in Gainesville, Florida, she received her B.A. in Humanities from New College of Florida in 1995. After a four-year stint in San Francisco, she returned to the land of jumbo sweet iced tea and thunderstorms because she thought (rightly) that the South would best feed her creative inclinations. Since moving back to Gainesville, she has created, produced and publicized hundreds of experiences including cabarets, plays, fundraisers and educational events.
In May 2010, she was awarded an MFA in Digital Media Art from School of Art & Art History, College of Fine Arts, University of Florida. Since then, she was the Student Appointed Professor, New College of Florida (Fall 2010) and done some instiutional and workshop teaching here and there, along with some pick up bread and butter work.
