Mem Nahadr is a jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 vocalist best known for the performance of the song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 Butterfly, composed by Yoko Kanno

Yoko Kanno

is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements...

 and lyricized by Chris Mosdell

Chris Mosdell

Chris Mosdell is a British lyricist, poet, author, composer, vocalist and illustrator, based in Tokyo, Japan, and Boulder, Colorado, USA.He has worked with a wide range of Japanese musicians and artists—the documentary Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist bills him as the...

 for Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop

is a critically acclaimed and award-winning 1998 Japanese anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and produced by Sunrise. Its 26 episodes comprise a complete storyline: set in 2071, the series follows the adventures, misadventures and tragedies of five bounty...

. She is also an author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, and multidisciplinary video/sonic performance art

Performance art

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

ist.

In 2008, she presented her off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 theatrical production, Madwoman: A Contemporary Opera

Madwoman: A Contemporary Opera

Madwoman: A Contemporary Opera is an opera - performance art work created by the American performance artist Mem Nahadr . It depicts a series of compositions, "M-mination" from a deemed "Madwoman", in an interactive multimedia installation of space, UV light, 5.1 surround sound, items, images and...

. co-produced by James P. Nichols

James P. Nichols

James P. Nichols is recognized as an expert in the recording industry having served as executive producer and master engineer.- Education :His involvement in the recording industry began in 1973 when after studying recording at The New School For Social Research, he obtained an Assistant Engineer...

, and Claude E. Sloan, Jr.

Nahadr, an albinistic

Albinism

Albinism is a congenital disorder characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes due to absence or defect of an enzyme involved in the production of melanin...

 African-American, was requested in 2004 by National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...

to have a portrait made of her by renowned photojournalist Robert Clark, to be included in an article on genetic inheritance, ideas of diversity and acceptance of difference. Later that year, the portrait and some of Nahadr's artistic work was included in the magazine's "Best of the Year" collection of images.

Another portrait of Nahadr travels internationally in the Positive Exposure exhibition (featuring many people with albinism and other genetic conditions) by notable fashion photographer and human rights activist Rick Guidotti. The collection was launched at the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

 during the Mapping of the Human Genome

Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...

Celebration in 2000.