Phoebe Legere is a visionary transmedia artist, composer, filmmaker, and cultural pioneer whose genre-defying work spans painting, music, performance, film, and radical participatory art. Discovered by Michael Jackson and signed to Epic/Sony at the height of its influence, Legere emerged as a fearless polymath—playing seven instruments, composing for orchestras, and sharing stages with icons like David Bowie (as his national tour opener), Billy Joel, and Joni Mitchell. Her Pulitzer-nominated epic poem The Waterclown, performed with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, cemented her reputation as a lyrical innovator, while her underground film roots—from starring in Toxic Avenger 2 & 3 with Troma Films to collaborating with Jack Smith and the East Village’s Super8 movement—reveal her as a cinematic provocateur.

A defining figure of the East Village Renaissance, Legere studied under gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (with whom she lived) and sat at the feet of literary legend Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider), who mentored her in screenwriting. Her work pulses with the rebellious energy of her peers Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, yet her voice is distinctly her own: a fusion of Juilliard-trained precision, NYU film-scoring mastery, and Abenaki heritage, channeled into what she calls Total Art Synthesis.

Legere’s films, like the award-winning Gender Symphony (17 international prizes, including Best Art Film at Cannes), interrogate power and identity through Hegelian drama and hand-drawn animation. Her politically charged musicals—Hello Mrs. President (censored by the Bush administration), The Queen of New England (on Native genocide), and Shakespeare and Elizabeth—reimagine history through feminist, Indigenous, and queer lenses. As a soloist at Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony, and Avery Fisher Hall, she’s conducted the New York Film Orchestra; as a painter, her work hangs in the Bundy Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum and major collections. 

Yet Legere’s most transformative work unfolds in collaboration with marginalized communities. Projects like Children of the River—co-created with low-income families along the Hudson—epitomize her belief in art as a “social and spiritual necessity.” From building alternative-fuel puppet vehicles to interactive sound sculptures at Harvestworks, she redefines participation as both protest and healing. Whether through her Abenaki-inspired iconography, her punk-operatic anthems, or her films that dissolve binaries, Legere is an unstoppable force of synthesis—where celebrity and solidarity, avant-garde grit and Grammy-worthy melody, collide.

Photo: Bob Gruen

Dress: House of Legere

Miss Legere plays the Steinway Piano