9-1-2014
The Triple Threat Just Turned into Many More
Multi-dimensional Performer/Entrepreneur Sherese Chrétien is Taking Multi-Talented to a Whole New Level.
She has ten music personas so far — eight of which have already released music online at Ever Entertainment® (her answer to the state of the entertainment industry — read more here), and 10 media personas in the works, addressing natural beauty to dance/fitness to fashion to relationships to travel & adventure to comedy to desserts to social commentary to advocacy to business (you can see them all at Eliyora Entertainment). It’s enough to make you dizzy! Ask Sherese Chrétien why and she just laughs and says, “It’s fun!”
Her husband, Bhati Jayasuriya, rolls his eyes and lets go of a big sigh, “I can’t keep them all straight,” but relates he learned long ago to just let her do her thing. Somehow, she keeps it straight. With seemingly endless energy, she flits from persona to persona and project to project like a happy bee among a field of flowers.
Chrétien says matter-of-factly, “How am I any different than any other artist?” Artists need to keep reinventing themselves and be able to express their inspirations through diverse avenues, she says. Add that on top of a successful 30+ year career in personal, professional & social development and you’ve got Chrétien’s unique version of expression.
“We’ve all observed other artists suffer and even self-destruct when they’re not allowed to keep learning, growing, and changing — when they get type-cast or pigeon-holed. I want to do all of this for the rest of my life AND stay healthy, so I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to me,” she says. “At the same time, I also didn’t want to disappoint audience expectation — this way, my jazz audience can always count on Sere doing just jazz — but Sherese still gets to do everything else that inspires her!”
She says she first got the idea while living in New Orleans. Before Hurricane Katrina, she hoped to have a venue on the lakefront in Old Mandeville. She came up with the idea of creating different personas for each genre from her love of variety shows growing up like Red Skelton and Carol Burnett. “Why not take the idea of skit characters further?” She imagined doing shows with each persona, their different personalities and costumes, on different nights, adding in movies before and dances in a pavilion afterwards. And what better setting than where jazz was born?
Then in 2006, relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada after Katrina, she found Second Life. Excited, she envisioned being able to perform “live” online, feverishly making avatars for each persona, purchasing land in the virtual world and setting up a venue. “What fun!” says Chrétien, “Playing in Second Life really helped me imagine my concept into what it is today!”
Flash forward to now and she’s written, recorded, produced and released songs for eight of her music personas on Ever Entertainment®. (See her interesting take on song-writing here). She wrote 160+ songs in one year — at least 20 each for the first eight genres. “I’m now working on getting all of those recorded and released, one persona at a time. I’m almost finished with all of Sere’s first 20 jazz songs.” She says she wants to keep it real, so she does what she calls zero-edit recording™ & producing with the vocals, so each song can feel as if she’s singing right in front of you (see One Take Studios™ story here).
Enter StageIt. Chrétien performed a couple “live” jazz concert fundraisers this summer in her venue in Second Life with Sere — and then she found StageIt — an online live concert venue. She has now performed two live jazz concerts on StageIt with Sere. Her first series of benefit concerts, “The Little Black Dress: Original Jazz” on StageIt will benefit Dress For Success Worldwide. “It’s amazing to be able to perform to a live audience online,” she says, adding that she enjoys performing in Second Life, but, of course, performing live on camera on StageIt takes it to a whole different level. “My first concert, I performed the day after Jon Bon Jovi, and an hour before Aaron Carter! How amazing is that!?” Chrétien added.
She’s certainly not new to performing, beginning at the age of 3, and every chance she’s gotten since with some great opportunities, while trying to stick to her plan of raising her kids and then pulling out all the stops to focus on music/media. “I couldn’t see me being both a mother & a touring performer at the same time, and doing either to my standards, so I decided to not drive myself insane and just do one at a time. Both are very important to me. I’ve baked my cake, raising two amazing kids, now this is my icing!” (see Late Just in Time.)
Her media personas? So far, among all of the song-writing, she did somehow manage to write a five-star business development book under her business persona’s name, Aren Benoit, entitled “Mirror Appointment Setting” (Find it on Amazon here), and she’s chomping at the bit to finish a couple more business development books, then move on to writing books and developing internet TV shows for the rest. Ask her why this selection of topics for her media personas and she answers simply, “These are all things I’m passionate about and love doing!”
What’s in store once she’s juggling all of her personas in the air? She’s moved to Aspen Colorado, just over the mountain from her hometown of Paonia, Colorado, and while she plans on doing live concert fundraisers for sure, she hasn’t let go of the idea of having a venue set where she could perform her online shows — and touring or doing stints on a cruise ship or at a Caribbean resort? Chrétien laughs, “Never say never!”
At 53 most of us are slowing down, ask her why she’s revving up and she says, “I”ve lived half my life, breathless, my heart on my sleeve with no regrets, and still have half to go — you ask why, I ask why not?!”
Eliyora Entertainment LLC. Ever Entertainment® © Paradunai LLC. All international rights reserved. All trademarks property of Paradunai LLC. All personas, concepts and original songs created and performed by Sherese Chrétien.
