Wexner Center for the Arts

School Programs Resources

A Thousand Thoughts: a Live Documentary by Sam Green and Kronos Quartet

“I've always wanted the string quartet to be vital, and energetic, and alive, and cool, and not afraid to kick ass and be absolutely beautiful and ugly if it has to be. But it has to be expressive of life. To tell the story with grace and humor and depth. And to tell the whole story, if possible." –David Harrington, Kronos Quartet

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE:

After 45 years since their inception the ever-forward thinking Kronos Quartet embrace a moment of reflection with this special Wexner Center commissioned collaboration with filmmaker Sam Green, for which they have won an Artist Residency Award at the Wexner. A live cinema documentary about Kronos’ past, present, and future, A Thousand Thoughts--conceptualized and directed by Green--will take on an expansive exploration of form as it tells the story of Kronos’ history through live narration, archival footage, interviews with Kronos collaborators such as Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Tanya Tagaq, and Wu Man among others, and live music performed by Kronos. Sam Green’s insightful narration will highlight telling moments from Kronos’ early days in San Francisco as upstarts in the world of classical music seeking new ways to perform chamber music with a hip edge while championing music from Jimi Hendrix and Astor Piazzolla to their place today as widely acclaimed artists and trailblazers of the vibrant indie chamber scene.

The meta quality of this work—a live documentary about Kronos as Kronos performs the soundtrack—allows audiences to reflect on the nature of liveness, presence, and the collective experience of art, while also deepening their understanding of Kronos’ music, story, and legacy. At its heart, the A Thousand Thoughts asks questions about the power of art, music, and beauty to change the world. As Kronos leader David Harrington says, “I've always wanted the string quartet to be vital, and energetic, and alive, and cool, and not afraid to kick ass and be absolutely beautiful and ugly if it has to be. But it has to be expressive of life. To tell the story with grace and humor and depth. And to tell the whole story, if possible." Be among the very first to witness these tales unfold and celebrate all they’ve achieved with Kronos as they debut their retrospective program crafted with Sam Green for their many Wexner Center fans. Cosponsored by the Wexner Center’s Departments of Performing Arts and Film/Video.

For more on their Artist Residency award: http://wexarts.org/press/artist-residency-awards- 2016-17

Link to a 3 min, 17 sec. video on A Thousand Thoughts: https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/2913879/video-783790-h264_high.mp4

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ABOUT KRONOS QUARTET:

 WHO: The Kronos Quartet’s current members are David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello). After more than 40 years and over 50 recordings of extraordinary breadth, the Quartet keeps going boldly with a commitment to fearless exploration and to re-imagining the string quartet experience.  BIO: In 1973, David Harrington was inspired to form Kronos after hearing George Crumb's Black Angels, a highly unorthodox, Vietnam War–inspired work featuring bowed water glasses, spoken word passages, and electronic effects.  STYLE: Kronos have built a diverse repertoire for string quartet, performing and recording works by 20th-century masters (Bartók, Webern, Schnittke), contemporary composers (Sofia Gubaidulina, Bryce Dessner, Aleksandra Vrebalov), jazz legends (Ornette Coleman, Maria Schneider, Thelonious Monk), rock artists (guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, Brazilian electronica artist Amon Tobin, and Icelandic indie-rock group Sigur Rós), and artists who truly defy genre (performance artist Laurie Anderson, composer/sound sculptor/inventor Trimpin, and singer-songwriter/poet Patti Smith).  AWARDS: Some of their awards include: the Polar Music Prize and the Avery Fisher Prize, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians (both in 2011), and 2 Grammys, for Best Chamber Music Performance (2004) and “Musicians of the Year” (2003) from Musical America.  COLLABORATIONS: They have been commissioned for pieces as well as have They have collaborated with many of the world's most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 850 works and arrangements for string quartet. One of the quartet’s most frequent composer-collaborators is “Father of Minimalism” Terry Riley, whose work with Kronos includes Salome Dances for Peace (1985–86); Sun Rings (2002), a multimedia, NASA-commissioned ode to the earth and its people, featuring celestial sounds and images from space. In addition to composers, Kronos counts numerous performers from around the world among its collaborators, including the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man; Azeri master vocalist Alim Qasimov; legendary Bollywood “playback singer” Asha Bhosle, featured on Kronos’ 2005 Grammy-nominated CD You’ve Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman’s Bollywood; Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq; indie rock band The National; Mexican rockers Café Tacvba; sound artist and instrument builder Walter Kitundu; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks.  FILM WORK: Kronos’ work has also featured prominently in a number of films, including two recent Academy Award–nominated documentaries: the AIDS-themed How to Survive a Plague (2012) and Dirty Wars (2013), an exposé of covert warfare for which Kronos’ David Harrington served as Music Supervisor. Kronos also performed scores by Philip Glass for the

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films Mishima and Dracula (a 1999 restored edition of the 1931 Tod Browning–Bela Lugosi classic) and by Clint Mansell for the Darren Aronofsky films Noah (2014), The Fountain (2006), and Requiem for a Dream (2000). Additional films featuring Kronos’ music include The Great Beauty (2013), Heat (1995), and True Stories (1986).  PAYING IT FORWARD: The quartet is committed to mentoring emerging performers and composers and has led workshops, master classes, and other education programs via the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the California State Summer School for the Arts, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, and other institutions in the U.S. and overseas.  In 2015 KPAA launched a new commissioning and education initiative – Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire. With Carnegie Hall as a lead partner, KPAA is commissioning 50 new works – 10 per year for five years – devoted to contemporary approaches to the quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works will be created by an eclectic group of composers – 25 women and 25 men. The quartet will premiere each piece and create companion materials, including scores and parts, recordings, videos, performance notes, and composer interviews, that will be distributed online for free: http://kronosquartet.org/fifty-for-the-future/composers. On June 14, 2017, Kronos announced that they received an Art Works’ Media Arts grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support these ongoing efforts to provide open access to contemporary string quartet scores and parts.

From http://www.kronosquartet.org/about

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ABOUT THE FILMMAKER, SAM GREEN:

 WHO: Sam Green is a documentary filmmaker. He’s made many movies including most recently The Measure of All Things and The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, a live cinematic collaboration with the indie rock band Yo La Tengo. His documentary The Weather Underground was nominated for an Academy Award and included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial.  EDUCATION: Sam Green received his Master’s Degree in Journalism from University of California Berkeley, where he studied documentary with acclaimed filmmaker Marlon Riggs.  MOST RECOGNIZED WORK: Green’s 2004 feature-length film, the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Weather Underground, tells the story of a group of radical young women and men who tried to violently overthrow the United States government during the late 1960s and 70s. The film premiered at the Sundance , was broadcast on PBS, included in the Whitney Biennial, and has screened widely around the world.  RECENT WORK = “LIVE DOCUMENTARIES”: His most recent projects are the “live documentaries” Utopia in Four Movements (2010) and The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller, which premiered May 1, 2012, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. Both works are performed live, with Green narrating and musicians performing the soundtrack. Love Song will be touring throughout 2012-13.  DOCUMENTARIES: Green’s previous long documentary, The Rainbow Man/John 3:16, follows the bizarre rise and fall of a man who became famous during the 1970s by appearing at thousands of televised sporting events wearing a rainbow wig. The film premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and has screened at festivals worldwide. “More than an exploration of life, The Rainbow Man is a parable about alienation, the media, and the meaninglessness that often defines American life.” – Trevor Groth, Sundance Film Festival  Green’s short documentaries include lot 63, grave c, Pie Fight ’69 (directed with Christian Bruno), N-Judah 5:30, and The Fabulous Stains: Behind the Movie (directed with Sarah Jacobson). From http://samgreen.to/

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RELEVANT VOCABULARY: arrangement a musical reconceptualization of a previously composed work. It may differ from the original work by means of reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or development of the formal structure. avant-garde a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic cinema conventions and explores non-narrative forms and alternatives (aka experimental to traditional narratives or methods of working. film/ cinema) avant-garde music a French phrase meaning "vanguard" or (literally, "advance guard"), describes movements or individuals at the forefront of innovation and experimentation in their fields.

Benshi tradition in Japan of professional narrators narrating silent films bowed string a subcategory of string instruments that are played by instruments a bow rubbing the strings. The bowrubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The members of Kronos Quartet all play such instruments (2 violins, 1 viola, and 1 cello). commission the act of requesting the creation of a piece, often on behalf of another. Artwork may be commissioned by private individuals, by the government, or businesses. composer a person who writes music, especially as a professional occupation. early cinema (aka had live narrators and live music silent cinema) ensemble a group of musicians, actors, or dancers who perform together. expanded cinema performance-driven works highlight the mysteries of visual perception or material properties of the medium.

Kronos “KRONOS (Cronus) was the King of the Titans and the god of time, in particular time when viewed as a destructive, all- devouring force. He ruled the cosmos during the Golden Age after castrating and deposing his father Ouranos (Uranus, Sky). In fear of a prophecy that he would in turn be overthrown by his own son, Kronos swallowed each of his children as they were born. Rhea managed to save the youngest, Zeus,” who become the father of the Greek gods.

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http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanKronos.html

“live what Sam Green calls the kind of performance in which he documentary” narrates a series of film clips accompanied by music. It is a form of expanded cinema and avant-garde cinema. If the focus is on performance, it may be called a “lecture performance.” pitch the quality of a sound governed by the rate of vibrations producing it; the degree of highness or lowness of a tone. quartet a group of four people playing music or singing together.

image: http://www.occasionalbrass.com/planning-string-ensemble.php

THEMES:

 Collaboration with composers, choreographers, performers, and different cultures o long-term collaborations o experimentation born from year-long collaborations  working together as a family  documentation of ephemeral events, of history  intermixing of art forms: musical performance, film  reinvigorating classical/ older forms of art (music and film)  haptic experiences: o listening as inspiring certain emotions  music encompassing desires, fears, humanity  cinema as communal, performative experience  cultural understanding through listening to music  learning through practice

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RELEVANT LINKS: Kronos Quartet Website: http://kronosquartet.org/home They list their touring calendar, describe current projects, as well as provide links to music from their Fifty for the Future project, and more.

Sam Green’s Website: http://samgreen.to/ One can find Green’s news and events, about his films, shop his store, and read press about his work.

George Crumbs’ 1973 Black Angels, a Vietnam War protest piece (20 mins) This instrumental song inspired David Harrington to found Kronos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44u 71qJFh00 with score

INTERVIEWS:

“At 40, Kronos Quartet Is Still Pushing Boundaries” in Mother Jones Harrington discusses how he incorporates unexpected elements into his music, and beautifully describes how music can serve as a motivation for activism while making one understand what it is to be human, with our desires, fears, and concerns. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/david-harrington-interview-kronos-quartet- 40-years/#

“The Kronos Quartet: Still Daring After All These Years” from NPR (7:20 mins) includes the members’ discussion of their process, comments from Minimalist Terry Riley on the group’s significance, and also – importantly – talks about its continued influence over young musicians. It appears as an article/ transcript, and NPR clip. http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2014/03/27/294780979/the-kronos- quartet-still-daring-after-all-these-years

“Making Documentaries More Real” is Hypoallergic’s interview with Sam Green from April 8, 2013 on his performance of The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller. Wonderful interview in which Green describes how films tell stories, how they are moving into the realm of performance, and how his goal is to connect people by making his “live documentaries” in which film becomes a communal experience. https://hyperallergic.com/68180/making-documentaries-more-real/

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MUSIC VIDEOS: To demonstrate the wide range of music that Kronos plays, here are a sampling of music videos:

ROCK, AFRO-PERSIAN, and BLUES: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert: Kronos Quartet “The intrepid champions of new music from around the word bring a lullaby, some rare blues and a recent work by The National’s Bryce Dessner to the offices of NPR Music.” They play “Aheym,” “Lullaby,” and “Last Kind Words,” each described here: http://www.npr.org/event/music/246393060/kronos-quartet-tiny-desk-concert

MINIMALISM: They are often noted for their long-term collaboration with minimalist Terry Riley. Per their website: “One of the quartet’s most frequent composer-collaborators is “Father of Minimalism” Terry Riley, whose work with Kronos includes … Sun Rings (2002), a multimedia, NASA-commissioned ode to the earth and its people, featuring celestial sounds and images from space. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDS- 3wY_sQA&list=PL85v3ho5sSTZsZpzkulB6 zc4SQPHCaDMd (8:20 mins) Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYbHOv FSKV8&index=2&list=PL85v3ho5sSTZsZp zkulB6zc4SQPHCaDMd (10:14 mins) Part 3a: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eGa4 UuXhM4&index=3&list=PL85v3ho5sSTZsZ pzkulB6zc4SQPHCaDMd (7:35 mins) Part 3b: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a_Dg_ Q7N80&index=4&list=PL85v3ho5sSTZsZp zkulB6zc4SQPHCaDMd (8:13 mins)

TANGO: Astor Piazzolla, a composer of nuevo tango, “conceived of five tangos, written for himself on bandoneon, and the Kronos Quartet on strings. The neo-classical style of Kronos fits surprisingly well on Piazzolla's new style of tango and provides a wonderful backing for the maestro at work. Though there are only five songs on the album, the title fits well, Five Tango Sensations. Each of the tangos presented is a sensation and conveys the full emotion or scene given in the titles: "Asleep," "Loving," "Anxiety," "Despertar" (waking up), and "Fear." Example of “Asleep”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rv1-WJVDr0

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ARTISTS EXPLORING SIMILAR THEMES OF COLLABORATION, CINEMA AS PERFORMATIVE, and INTERMIXING OF ART FORMS:

FILM AND MUSIC: “Silent” Films and Early Cinema: The films of the early era that were without synchronized sound, from the earliest film (around 1891), until 1927, when the first 'talkie', The Jazz Singer (1927) was produced, although there were a few other 'silents' later on, such as City Lights (1931).

Calling them silent films is something of a misnomer - movie theatres and other dream palaces provided pianists, wurlitzers, and other sound machines, and some films were produced with complete musical scores. Most early silents were accompanied with a full-fledged orchestra, organist or pianist to provide musical background and to underscore the narrative on the screen. Some even had live actors or narrators. Unfortunately, many of the early classics have been lost to decomposing nitrate film bases and outright destruction. http://www.filmsite.org/silentfilms.html This site also lists silent films, and has links to synopses of many of them: http://www.filmsite.org/silentfilms2.html

“Yasujiro Ozu and the art of Benshi” Traditional Benshi performers discuss a lost art and their unique accompaniment to a rare screening of Yasujiro Ozu’s gangster film Walk Cheerfully.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news- opinion/news-bfi/video/video- yasujiro-ozu-art-benshi

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Brand Upon the Brain, by Canadian director, Guy Maddin, 2006: Originally mounted as a theatrical event (accompanied by live orchestra, Foley artists, and assorted narrators), Brand upon the Brain! is an irreverent, delirious trip into the mind of one of current cinema’s true eccentrics. https://www.criterion.com/films/746- brand-upon-the-brain

Jem Cohen’s “We Have an Anchor” from 2012 “is a documentary-based, interdisciplinary hybrid built from footage he gathered in Nova Scotia over the past decade, coupled with live music and texts ranging from poems and folklore to mundane local newspaper fragments to scientific research.” It combines multiscreen projections of Nova Scotia landscapes with live accompaniment by musicians from Fugazi, the Dirty Three, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. https://vimeo.com/38782238

Brent Green’s tour of his stop- motion film, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then from 2011 included live narration and music. Green also made a document of the live version of the film. Useful video preview: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/2662 7

Cinema may be moving in this direction… ’s Nitehawk Cinema’s Live & Sound & Cinema “is a powerful event series that combines live musical scores, frequently by musicians, with films that include silent era classics and cult genre favorites. The result produces an integration of sound that enhances, challenges, and plays with the moving images on-screen. Our LIVE SOUND CINEMA events happen at brunch, midnite, and special one-night screenings!” https://nitehawkcinema.com/williamsburg/film-series/live-sound-cinema/

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Similar Live Touring Radio Shows: Radiolab, with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, is a radio show and podcast stories and science into sound and music-rich documentaries. www.radiolab.org/

“Differences of Seeing a Play vs. Watching a Movie” Wonderfully outlines key factors that make a live performance special, like the emotional connection between the performers and the audience, and the potential for error and for immediate feedback. http://nicolletteeisenman.blogspot.ca/2011/04/differences-of-seeing-play-vs- watching.html

CLASSICAL AND MODERN MUSIC: “Bach and Roll: 28 Best Rock/Classical Crossovers” This article with links for more on listed musicians and a slide show of albums/ songs exemplary of this crossover, explains how rock artists covered classical pieces, collaborated with classical music players, or integrate classical instruments, structures, and motifs into their music. http://ultimateclassicrock.com/rock-classical-crossovers/

“Eighth Blackbird is ‘one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet’ (Chicago Tribune). Launched by six entrepreneurial Oberlin Conservatory undergraduates in 1996,” they have collaborated with several composers, including for example, minimalist Steve Reich, and have earned several honors, including the MacArthur Prize, for their new music style, a combination of classical and more modern music genres. https://www.eighthblackbird.org/ensemble/

Alarm Will Sound Its repertoire ranges from European to American works, from the arch- modernist to the pop-influenced. Alarm Will Sound has been associated since its inception with composers at the forefront of contemporary music, premiering pieces by John Adams, Steve Reich, David Lang, among others. The group itself includes many composer- performers, which allows for an unusual degree of insight into the creation and performance of new work. http://bangonacan.org/about_us image: http://www.alarmwillsound.com/press/reviews.php

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Bang on a Can is dedicated to making music new. Since its first Marathon concert in 1987, Bang on a Can has been creating an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found. With adventurous programs, it commissions new composers, performs, presents, and records new work, develops new audiences, and educates the musicians of the future. Bang on a Can is building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders. http://bangonacan.org/about_us

Sō Percussion is a percussion-based music organization that creates and presents new collaborative works to adventurous and curious audiences and educational initiatives to engaged students, while providing meaningful service to its communities, in order to exemplify the power of music to unite people and forge deep social bonds. https://sopercussion.com/about/

HAPTIC EXPERIENCES, MUSIC ENCOMPASSING DESIRES, FEARS, HUMANITY, and CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING THROUGH LISTENING TO MUSIC:

“Curtain Call: The Power of Live Performance” This article gives great examples of how live performance can offer hope, inspire confidence, shift one’s point-of-view, and potentially lead to world peace. http://www.yourobserver.com/article/curtain-call-power-live-performance

“Music Can Change (the Way We See) the World” argues that music may have a direct relation to how we view our relationships, and the world around us. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/music-can-change-the-way-we-see-the- world/

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“Music that Has Changed the World” By giving 16 global examples, the article shows how “music is a universal language that we all understand. By appealing to our emotions, it has the ability to break down complex issues into things we can all relate to like love, friendship, fear, or loss. In this way music expands our horizons and opens our minds to new ideas.” https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content /music -that-has-changed-the-world/

RELATED LITERATURE:

Echo Pam Muñoz Ryan

Lost in the Black Forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and finds himself entwined in a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica--and decades later three children, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California find themselves caught up in the same of destiny in the darkest days of the twentieth century, struggling to keep their families intact, and tied together by the music of the same harmonica. The audio version weaves replications of the harmonica music into the narration of the text, ingeniously. image: https://books.google.com/books/about/Echo.ht https://bepl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$ ml?id=BAp-BAAAQBAJ&source=kp_cover 002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:1988827/ada

Virtuosity Jessica Martinez

Some teens live to listen to music; Carmen lives to play it. Her entire life is about her passion for and skill with the violin, but she faces a dangerous combination of anxiety, chemical dependence, and a rival who threatens both her dream and her heart. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/7- great-young-adult-books-for-music-lovers/ Pages 2017 14

Where She Went Gayle Forman It’s been three years since the tragic events of If I Stay, and Adam and Mia still have one thing very much in common: music is their lives. She’s taken her skill in cello to Julliard in , and he’s made a life for himself as a rock star. When they meet again, both in the spotlight in their own, independent rights, they relearn each other and what they’ve missed, and see that once you’ve mastered the solo, you just might finally be ready to duet. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/7- great-young-adult-books-for-music-lovers/

Illuminae Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff It's the year 2575, and Kady has just broken up with her boyfriend Ezra. If that wasn't hard enough, on that same day, her planet is invaded by not one, but two rival mega- corporations. Now Kady and Ezra, who are barely speaking, have to navigate an evacuation, just in time for a deadly virus to begin ripping through the survivors. Told through message conversations, "found" documents, video transcripts, and more, this unique book is the first in a trilogy. On documentation and collaboration. https://www.bustle.com/articles/162406-13- ya-novels-that-are-the-result-of-an-awesome- collaboration

“Sex Education” Dorothy Canfield Fisher The narrator’s Aunt Minnie tells a story of something frightening that happened in her youth. She repeats the story three times, spaced several years apart, with a changing perspective on what happened. The story addresses family oral history and the reinvention of history, similar themes to the renewing of older and classical music forms , and of adding new twists to music that Kronos does. This story is included in this packet. Story and image: http://www.centerforfiction.org/forwriters/the- model-short-story/sex-education-by-dorothy- canfield-fisher/ Pages 2017 15

DISCUSSION PROMPTS:

Intermixing of Art Forms  Why make a documentary about a string quartet today? Who might be the desired audience?  Sam Green believes that film makers are storytellers who “use images to create magic and poems and narratives” (Hyperallergic, “Making Documentaries More Real,” April 8, 2013). Are documentary film makers also storytellers? If so, how?

 Can purely instrumental music be narrative?

Cinema as Communal, Performative Experience and Music inspiring Haptic Experiences  Sam Green said in an review by (April 5, 2013) that experiencing his “live documentaries” is both a “singular experience, and a collective one, with the potential for human connection and human error.” What might he mean by this? How can it be singular? collective? What could some of the “human connection[s]” or potential errors be?

 Why create what Sam Green calls a “live documentary” in which a band plays while he narrates a film? What effect might this performance have vs. that of several films which have background music while an unseen person narrates (performing a “voice over”)? What might he expect from his audience?

Cultural Understanding through Listening to Music  One of Kronos’ collaborators, composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, incorporated sounds of war from her native Serbia to bring awareness to the tragedies there and to communicate universally with audiences. Has music ever moved you enough to act on an issue, or to change your perspective? If so, when?

 If you were to write a song about the current time, what kind of music would you choose? Would you have lyrics? What would be your overall message?

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COMPARABLE ARTWORKS:

Bayeux Tapestry. about 1070. Bayeux Museum, Bayeux, France

“Measuring twenty inches high and almost 230 feet in length, the commemorates a struggle for the throne of England between William, the Duke of Normandy, and Harold, the Earl of Wessex (Normandy is a region in northern France). The year was 1066—William invaded and successfully conquered England, becoming the first Norman King of England (he was also known as William the Conqueror). The Bayeux Tapestry consists of seventy-five scenes with Latin inscriptions (tituli) depicting the events leading up to the Norman conquest and culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The 's end is now missing, but it most probably showed the coronation of William as King of England.” https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial- americas/medieval-europe-islamic-world/a/bayeux-tapestry

This textile is not a true tapestry because it was embroidered vs. woven. Scholars believe the tapestry was hung in a rectangular hall; a narrator recounted the scenes as viewers/ participants walked the length of the tapestry, or sat in the middle of the room as the narrator did.

Great video on the animation of the tapestry (4:24 mins). It does not have someone reading it, it translates the vernacular and Latin text on the cloth into English, while sounds natural to the scenes, and medieval music aid in the narration and progression of the story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtGoBZ4D4_E

The Museum in Reading, England has a replica and recreated its original display around a hall: https://museummutterings.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/reading-museum/

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https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial- americas/medieval-europe-islamic-world/a/bayeux-tapestry

Scene in which Harold is crowned King (detail), Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1070, embroidered on , 20 inches high (Bayeux Museum) https://bucks.instructure.com/courses/200544/files/2586336?module_item_id=1474412

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The death of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings (detail), Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1070, embroidered wool on linen, 20 inches high (Bayeux Museum) https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial- americas/medieval-europe-islamic-world/a/bayeux-tapestry

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Lever. 1966. Artist: Carl Andre Location: Collection of the Artist

Artwork description & Analysis: Carl Andre's Lever was the most audacious entry at the 1966 Primary Structures exhibition that introduced the public to Minimalism. This row of 137 firebricks aligned to project out from the wall and straight across the floor was likened by Andre to a fallen column. Lever startled gallery visitors, interrupted their movement and, in its simplicity, was annoying. Made from easily available building materials ("anyone could do it: where was the art?"), Lever demanded respect from thoughtful viewers while undermining traditional artistic values. Such provocations became routine for Andre: "my ambition as an artist is to be the 'Turner of matter.' As Turner severed color from depiction, so I attempt to sever matter from depiction." He went on to describe wood as the "mother of matter" and praised bricklayers as "people of fine craft."

In this way, Andre's Lever along with many Minimalist works challenged how art was situated in the gallery and how viewers interacted with it. Art no longer was hung discreetly on the wall or placed on a pedestal in the corner as something to enjoy in a purely visual way. It now required a more complex and thoughtful interaction from the viewer. This piece is made of nontraditional materials that call to mind industrial or building materials that require no manipulation from the hand of the artist. While the work is nonrepresentational, the title is suggestive of manual labor. http://www.theartstory.org/movement-minimalism-artworks.htm

image: http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/teachers/plans/zoom_e.jsp?mkey=7910&img_ty pe=WI

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Another Minimalistic work that requires the viewer to complete it:

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morris-untitled-t01532

Untitled (mirrored cubes). 1965-71. Artist: Robert Morris Location: Tate Gallery, London

Artwork description & Analysis: This group of four mirrored cubes illustrates the artist's development as both a Conceptual artist and a Minimalist over a five-year period. Robert Morris began by producing large grey painted plywood boxes that were first used as stage props for a ballet company where he also performed. Their regular geometry and inexpressive surfaces allied his art with the developing Minimalist style, winning him both a solo exhibition and a slot in the landmark 1966 Primary Structures show. By that time Morris had achieved the status of a spokesman for the group with a series of academic essays on sculpture published in Artforum, which were widely debated.

These mirrored cubes advanced his interest in the visual properties of materials and modes of perception. The fact that Morris covers his cubes in mirrors forces the viewers to confront themselves in the act of looking rather than simply and placidly admiring the work of art. The size of the piece is roughly the height of a table or countertop, so, like Carl Andre, Morris offers the viewer a kinesthetic or somatic experience that is also outside the traditional art experience. It is this invasion of the center of the gallery space by an object and the concomitant evolving of the art experience beyond the purely visual that led Micheal Fried to call the movement "theatrical." http://www.theartstory.org/movement-minimalism-artworks.htm Pages 2017 21

POETRY on SOUNDS and MUSIC

Music Juhan Liiv, trans. from the Estonian by H.L. Hix and Jüri Talvet

It must be somewhere, the original harmony, somewhere in great nature, hidden. Is it in the furious infinite, in distant stars’ orbits, is it in the sun’s scorn, in a tiny flower, in treegossip, in heartmusic’s mothersong or in tears? It must be somewhere, immortality, somewhere the original harmony must be found: how else could it infuse the human soul, that music?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/54737

Music Box Jorge Luis Borges, trans. from Spanish by Tony Barnstone

Music of Japan. Parsimoniously from the water clock the drops unfold in lazy honey or ethereal gold that over time reiterates a weave eternal, fragile, enigmatic, bright. I fear that every one will be the last. They are a yesterday come from the past. But from what shrine, from what mountain’s slight garden, what vigils by an unknown sea, and from what modest melancholy, from what lost and rediscovered afternoon do they arrive at their far future: me? Who knows? No matter. When I hear it play I am. I want to be. I bleed away.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/55414

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Rain Don Paterson

I love all films that start with rain: rain, braiding a windowpane or darkening a hung-out dress or streaming down her upturned face; one long thundering downpour right through the empty script and score before the act, before the blame, before the lens pulls through the frame to where the woman sits alone beside a silent telephone or the dress lies ruined on the grass or the girl walks off the overpass, and all things flow out from that source along their fatal watercourse. However bad or overlong such a film can do no wrong, so when his native twang shows through or when the boom dips into view or when her speech starts to betray its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold on a rain-dark gutter, running gold with the neon of a drugstore sign, and I’d read into its blazing line: forget the ink, the milk, the blood— all was washed clean with the flood we rose up from the falling waters the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters and none of this, none of this matters.

The New Yorker, May 26, 2008 Issue http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/05/26/rain-poems-don-paterson

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Cynthia in the Snow Gwendolyn Brooks

It SHUSHES It hushes The loudness in the road. It flitter-twitters, And laughs away from me. It laughs a lovely whiteness, And whitely whirls away, To be Some otherwhere, Still white as milk or shirts, So beautiful it hurts.

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AfAm/afampoetry/BrooksCynthiaInS now.htm

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The Color of Silence Carrie Richards

If you could paint a picture of silence What color would it be?

Would you use the brush of fog to hush all sound A shade of gray, with touch of brown, where eaves are dripping to the ground and windows weep their quiet tears Where solitude obscures the view In a slate of lonely winterlude?

Or would it be a shade of green A forest deep, of muted breeze No sound to scatter birds from trees No broken branches, swaying grasses Missteps that crackle the fallen leaves Untouched by clatter, harsh and rude?

Would silence be as black as night A cave too deep for shards of light A void within a famished core A well of dark and empty shores?

Or would silence be of many hues? A rainbow shade of morning dew A soft pastel of sun declining? No bedlam, blast or blare of noise Could break the spell, a silent voice As if the soul could slip away....

A hush, immense.....so sweet and keen, Like ghosts unseen, or angels soft as air... A silent sea, ....where mountains lend an ear As clouds pile high, ....and wait to hear... Only for this: such peace....such bliss A sound so small, ... as welcome as a sigh

Copyright © Carrie Richards | Year Posted 2010 https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/best/sound

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Mid-August at Soudough Mountain Lookout Gary Snyder

Down valley a smoke haze Three days heat, after five days rain Pitch glows on the fir-cones Across rocks and meadows Swarms of new flies. I cannot remember things I once read A few friends, but they are in cities. Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup Looking down for miles Through high still air.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47182/mid-august-at-sourdough- mountain-lookout

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COLLABORATIVE POETRY

Exquisite Politics Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton (These poets have collaborated since 1991.)

The perfect voter has a smile but no eyes, maybe not even a nose or hair on his or her toes, maybe not even a single sperm cell, ovum, little paramecium. Politics is a slug copulating in a Poughkeepsie garden. Politics is a grain of rice stuck in the mouth of a king. I voted for a clump of cells, anything to believe in, true as rain, sure as red wheat. I carried my ballots around like smokes, pondered big questions, resources and need, stars and planets, prehistoric languages. I sat on Alice’s mushroom in Central Park, smoked longingly in the direction of the mayor’s mansion. Someday I won’t politic anymore, my big heart will stop loving America and I’ll leave her as easy as a marriage, splitting our assets, hoping to get the advantage before the other side yells: Wow! America, Vespucci’s first name and home of free and brave, Te amo.

-- from They Said, the collection of collaborations that Black Lawrence Press is publishing. The editors of the book -- Simone Muench and Dean Rader assisted by Sally Ashton and Jackie White -- "have selected nearly 200 pieces of recent collaborative writing. They Said: A Multi- Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing includes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as hybridized forms that push the boundaries of concepts like 'genre' and 'author'." For more about this venture, please click here.

http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2017/06/exquisite-politics-by- denise-duhamel-and-maureen-seaton.html

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Renshi (連詩 renshi, "linked poetry") is a form of collaborative poetry pioneered by Makoto Ōoka in the 1980s.[1][2] It is a development of traditional Japanese renga and renku, but unlike these it does not adhere to traditional strictures on length, rhythm, and diction.[citation needed] Renshi are typically composed by a group of Japanese and foreign poets collaborating in the writing process in sessions lasting several days.[1] In addition to Ooka, poets who have participated in renshi include James Lasdun, Charles Tomlinson, Hiromi Itō, Shuntarō Tanikawa, Jerome Rothenberg, Joseph Stanton, Wing Tek Lum, Karin Kiwus and Mikirō Sasaki.[1][2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renshi

An example of renshi is:

Narrow Road to the Deep North Basho translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa

(The poet writes of the impromptu full moon-viewing party at a priest’s hermitage:)

Shortly before daybreak, however, the moon began to shine through the rifts made in the hanging clouds. I immediately wakened the priest, and other members of the household followed him out of bed. We sat for a long time in utter silence, watching the moonlight trying to penetrate the clouds and listening to the sound of the lingering rain. It was really regrettable that I had come such a long way only to look at the dark shadow of the moon, but I consoled myself by remembering the famous lady who had returned without composing a single poem from the long walk she had taken to hear a cuckoo. The following are the poems we composed on this occasion: Regardless of the weather,

The moon shines the same; It is the drifting clouds That make it seem different On different nights. – written by the priest

Swift the moon Across the sky, Treetops below Dripping with rain. Having slept In a temple, I watched the moon With a solemn look. – written by Tosei [Basho’s earlier pen name]

Having slept In the rain, The bamboo corrected itself To view the moon. – written by Sora

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How lonely it is To look at the moon Hearing in a temple Eavesdrops pattering. – written by Soha

https://somethinglooseknit.wordpress.com/tag/renshi/

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