Sook-Yin Lee 李素英 | |
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Background information | |
Born | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
Occupation(s) | Musician, actress, filmmaker, broadcaster, multimedia artist |
Years active | 1990–present |
Labels | Zulu, Mint Records |
Sook-Yin Lee | |||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 李素英 | ||||||
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Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian broadcaster,musician,film director,actress and multimedia artist. She is a former MuchMusic VJ and a former radio host on CBC Radio. She has appeared in films,notably in the John Cameron Mitchell movie Shortbus .
Lee was born in Vancouver,British Columbia. [1] She is the second daughter of father,Leo Lee, [2] from Hong Kong and a mother from Mainland China, [3] Lee was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. [4] Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong,and her mother an escapee from Communist China [3] who remained in and out of psychiatric institutions when Lee was young. [5] Lee also has a sister,Deanna,a Vancouver-based artist. [6] She grew up within a strict,secretive and unstable family. [3] When Lee was 15,her parents split up and Lee ran away from home,for a time living on the street [7] before eventually living with a "community of lesbians and artists". [3]
In the mid-1980s,she became the lead singer for Bob's Your Uncle,a Vancouver alternative rock band. [8] Lee often incorporated performance art techniques into the band's melodic rock. When that band broke up,Lee pursued a solo music career,releasing several solo albums and performing as an actor in theatre,film and television projects. She was the lead singer for the band Slan. [9] Neko Case covered Lee's song "Knock Loud" on her 2001 EP Canadian Amp .
She had a relationship with the comic artist Chester Brown from 1992 until 1996. She is depicted in several of his comics. He moved to Vancouver for two years to be with her,and moved back to Toronto with her when she became a VJ for MuchMusic. He also drew the cover for her 1996 solo album Wigs 'n Guns . Brown's relationship with Lee is the last boyfriend/girlfriend relationship he had,as he explains in Paying for It . They remain good friends,and Brown has contributed artwork to her productions as recently as 2009's Year of the Carnivore ;in 2024,Lee directed the film adaptation of Brown's graphic novel Paying for It. [10]
She was later in a relationship with writer and musician Adam Litovitz,who was also her frequent artistic collaborator,from 2007 until 2018. [11] They occasionally performed improvised musical sets under the name LLVK,short for Lee/Litovitz/Valdivia/Kamino,and formed the band Jooj,which released its debut album in 2015. [12] An album of music written by Sook-Yin and Adam was completed in 2020 and was released under the title of jooj two in April 2021 on Mint Records.
She resides in Toronto. [13]
Lee is bisexual and gender-fluid. [14]
Lee became a VJ for MuchMusic in 1995,hosting MuchMusic's alternative music show The Wedge . [15] [16]
In 1995,on the day that sexual orientation was held to be protected under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Egan v Canada case,Lee celebrated the decision by kissing a woman on the air. [17] She later appeared on the cover of Xtra! in 1997.
During her last appearance as a MuchMusic VJ in 2001,Lee and her co-host turned their backs to the camera,and mooned the audience on live television. [15] [18]
She became the new host of CBC Radio One's Saturday afternoon pop culture magazine radio-show Definitely Not the Opera in 2002. [19] Definitely Not the Opera completed its run in 2016. [19]
In the fall of 2004,she hosted a documentary celebrating Terry Fox as part of the CBC Television series The Greatest Canadian . [20]
During the Summer of 2008,Lee was a member of the CBC Olympic broadcasting team for the Beijing games. [21] During the games,Lee filmed a TV spot that touched upon concerns regarding human rights and political issues.
In 2016,Lee hosted the 10 episode summer series Sleepover for CBC Radio, [22] [23] which continued as a podcast [24] until 2018.
In 2020,Lee hosted Landscape Artist of the Year Canada ,a Canadian adaptation of Landscape Artist of the Year ,for Makeful. [25]
As a feminist,Lee specifically works on films that discuss feminist and/or racial issues. Escapades of One Particular Mr. Noodle (1990) was her debut as a feminist film director. This film was produced by Studio D,a primarily feminist film production company,as one of the short films in their segment Five Feminist Minutes (1990).
Lee played the lead character Alessa Woo,alongside fellow Canadian actor Adam Beach,in Helen Lee's 2001 film The Art of Woo .
Lee also has a smaller part in John Cameron Mitchell's film Hedwig and the Angry Inch ,playing Kwahng-Yi,a guitarist in Hedwig's rock band made up of Korean-born army wives.
In 2003,she became the centre of controversy when Mitchell first announced that he was casting Lee in his film Shortbus (released 2006). Due to Mitchell's announcement that the film was to be sexually explicit in nature –Lee and other cast members perform non-simulated intercourse and masturbation on screen –the CBC initially threatened to fire her. [26] In making Shortbus,Mitchell sought to make a film about love and sex without censoring itself. [27] Celebrities such as director Francis Ford Coppola,R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe,actress Julianne Moore and artist and musician Yoko Ono,as well as the CBC's listening audience,rallied behind her,and the CBC ultimately relented. [28] The movie premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Her performance in Shortbus earned Lee the 2007 International Cinephile Society Award for Best Supporting Actress. [29] This was not her first film that explores a sexually explicit nature. She acted in 3 Needles (2005),a short film about HIV and AIDS. The film takes place in various locations around the world - Canada,China,and South Africa - demonstrating the universality of STDs/STIs. [30]
In 2012,she was chosen to play Olivia Chow in the biopic television film Jack ,alongside Rick Roberts as Jack Layton. [31] The film aired on CBC Television in 2013. She subsequently won the 2014 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by a Lead Dramatic Actress in a Program/Mini-Series. [32]
Lee stars in,wrote and directed The Brazilian segment of the 2008 film Toronto Stories . [33]
Her feature film directorial debut Year of the Carnivore premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009. Lee,Litovitz and Buck 65 also collaborated on the film's soundtrack,which garnered a Genie Award nomination for Best Original Score at the 31st Genie Awards.
Her second feature film as a director, Octavio Is Dead! ,premiered at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in 2018,and received several Canadian Screen Award nominations at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards.
In 2013,Lee wrote and starred in a theatrical performance show How Can I Forget? at Toronto's Rhubarb and Summerworks theatre festivals. [34] She and Litovitz also staged Morrice Fled:Two Paintings Talk to Each Other,a pop-up performance at the Art Gallery of Ontario based on the art of James Wilson Morrice,in January. In 2014,Lee choreographed a dance solo for Syreeta Hector as part of On Display for Toronto Dance Theatre. From 2015 to 2017,she created and directed Sphere of Banished Suffering with dancers Jenn Goodwin,Mairi Greig,and Charlie McGettigan with Litovitz developed in residencies with LUFF art+dialogue,Dancemakers,Artscape Sandbox,and premiered at the Festival of New Dance 2017.
In 2019,she wrote and appeared in Unsafe,a documentary theatre production on the topic of censorship,at Canadian Stage. [35]
Much is a Canadian English language discretionary specialty channel owned by BCE Inc. through its Bell Media subsidiary that airs programming aimed at teenagers and young adults. It is headquartered at 299 Queen Street West in what was once called the MuchMusic World Headquarters.
Definitely Not the Opera was a magazine-style radio program focusing on aspects of pop culture and storytelling,that aired on CBC Radio One on Saturday afternoons from 1994 until 2016. The show's running time varied over the years,though it ran for a full hour in its final year. An abridged version of each program is available for download as a weekly podcast,with an abbreviated sister edition called Your DNTO,airing on Tuesday afternoons and featuring listener-submitted content.
George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos is a Canadian media personality,television host and podcaster. He is one of Canada's most popular broadcasters and best known as formerly being a VJ for the Canadian music television channel MuchMusic. He was also the host and co-executive producer of the CBC Television talk show George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight from 2005 to 2014. From 2014 to 2016,Stroumboulopoulos worked for Rogers Media,anchoring Hockey Night in Canada and the NHL on Rogers. From 2009 to 2023,he was a radio host on CBC Music. Most recently,he joined Apple Music Radio as host of a Monday to Thursday live show.
The Wedge is a defunct Canadian television series devoted to indie and alternative music,which aired on Canadian music TV station MuchMusic from 1992 to 2014.
Alida Kinnie Starr is a Canadian multidisciplinary singer and rapper.
Monika Deol is an Indian Canadian television personality. She began as an entertainment reporter for Citytv in Toronto,Ontario,and then became an anchor for MuchMusic's national news shows FAX and RapidFAX. From 1988 to 1996 Deol was simultaneously entertainment anchor on CityPulse at Six,co-host of MuchMusic's FAX and RapidFAX,and co-host of Citytv's alternative fashion and style show Ooh La La while hosting and co-producing MuchMusic's Electric Circus. Deol was the first news anchor with the inaugural VTV Vancouver News at 6 and anchor on CityPulse News at 11 on Citytv Vancouver in 2002.
Terry David Mulligan is a Canadian actor and radio and television personality based in Vancouver,British Columbia.
Laurie Brown is a Canadian television journalist. She grew up in Scarborough,Ontario and graduated from David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute. Her parents were originally from Nova Scotia,and when Brown was in her late teens,they and her sister Susan moved back to that province. Brown remained in Toronto,and eventually embarked on a career in television and radio broadcasting.
Shortbus is a 2006 American erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in an early 2000s New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell,the film attempts to "employ sex in new cinematic ways because it's too interesting to leave to porn." Shortbus includes a variety of explicit scenes containing non-simulated sexual intercourse with visible penetration and male ejaculation.
Denise Anne Donlon,is a Canadian business executive,television producer,author,public speaker,host,and member of the Order of Canada.
Nora Young is a Canadian broadcaster and writer. She was the first host of CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera,from 1994 to 2002. Since 2007,she has been the host of Spark on CBC Radio One.
Bob's Your Uncle was a Canadian alternative rock band formed in Vancouver. The band consisted of band founder guitarist Jamie Junger,vocalist and guitarist Sook-Yin Lee,bassist Bernie Radelfinger,harmonica player Peter Lizotte and drummer John Rule,later to be replaced by drummer Karl Cardosa Aka Charles Pinto. The band's music was characterized by Lee's strong voice and lyrics,and with rock,jazz and blues instrumental accompaniment.
The Art of Woo is a 2001 Canadian romantic comedy film written and directed by Helen Lee and starring Sook-Yin Lee and Adam Beach.
Year of the Carnivore is a 2009 Canadian romantic comedy film about a grocery store detective with a crush on a man who rejects her because she has too little sexual experience. It stars Cristin Milioti,Mark Rendall,Will Sasso,Ali Liebert,and Luke Camilleri.
Candy Palmater was a Canadian actress,comedienne,and broadcaster. She was the creator and writer of her own national television show for APTN,The Candy Show,and hosted the daily interview series The Candy Palmater Show on CBC Radio One in summer 2016.
Helen Lee is a Korean-Canadian film director. Born in Seoul,South Korea,she emigrated to Canada at the age of four and grew up in Scarborough,Ontario. Interested in film at a young age,she took film studies at the University of Toronto and,later,New York University. While in university she was influenced by gender and minority theories,as reflected in her first film,the short Sally's Beauty Spot (1990). While continuing her studies she produced two more films before taking a five-year hiatus to live in Korea beginning in 1995. After her return,she released another short film and her feature film debut,The Art of Woo (2001). She continues to produce films,although at a reduced rate. Lee's films often deal with gender and racial issues,reflecting the state of East Asians in modern society;a common theme in her work is sexuality,with several films featuring interracial relationships.
Octavio Is Dead! is a 2018 Canadian supernatural drama film written and directed by Sook-Yin Lee. It premiered on June 2,2018 at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival before going into theatrical release on June 22.
Adam Litovitz was a Canadian musician and composer. He was most noted for his work on the films Year of the Carnivore,for which he received a Genie Award nomination for Best Original Score at the 31st Genie Awards,and Octavio Is Dead!,for which he was nominated for Best Original Song at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards.
Min Sook Lee is a Canadian documentary filmmaker,screenwriter,academic,and political activist.
Landscape Artist of the Year Canada is a Canadian reality competition series,which premiered in 2020 on Makeful and CBC Gem. An adaptation of the British series Landscape Artist of the Year,the series featured Canadian artists,both amateur and professional,competing to produce the best landscape paintings of scenes in Canadian nature.
... the Toronto-based Lee has always been on a quest of understanding the human condition.
She got her first big break in 1995 when she was cast as a VJ on Much Music, most notably as the longtime host of the network's cult alternative music show the Wedge.
... she came to MuchMusic in 1995 where she would become one of the station's most controversial VJs. Hosting their alternative music show The Wedge ...
From the day she participated in a vigorous game of on-air girl-to-girl tonsil-hockey (to celebrate the addition of the words "sexual orientation" to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms)
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)On her last day at MuchMusic a couple of months ago, the flamboyant Lee mooned the camera.
The storytelling show is hosted by Sook-Yin Lee, who hails from Vancouver and joined the show in 2002.
Terry Fox: advocate, Sook-Yin Lee ; directed, written and produced by Leora Eisen ; producer, Jackie Carlos.
Lee describes the half-hour Sleepover (airing Mondays at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesdays at 9:30 a.m.) as "part populist entertainment, part durational art project and part social experiment."
CBC Radio One says Lee will host the new 30-minute weekly show "Sleepover," which will air Mondays at 7:30 p.m. ET, beginning June 27.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)