Friday Evening, January 20, 2017 at 8:00 Power Center, Ann Arbor ON BEHALF OF NATURE Performed by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble A production of The House Foundation for the Arts 31st Performance of the 138th Annual Season International Theater Series This evening’s presenting sponsor is the Renegade Ventures Fund, established by Maxine and Stuart Frankel. This evening’s supporting sponsor is the Ilene H. Forsyth Theater Endowment Fund. This evening’s performance is funded in part by the Building Audiences for Sustainability initiative of The Wallace Foundation. Media partnership is provided by Ann Arbor’s 107one and Metro Times. Special thanks to Grace Lehman and the Ann Arbor Y, Chrisstina Hamilton and the U-M Penny Stamps Speaker Series, and Clare Croft for their participation in events surrounding this evening’s performance. Special thanks to Tiffany Ng, assistant professor of carillon and university carillonist, for coordinating the pre-concert music on the Charles Baird Carillon. On Behalf of Nature appears by arrangement with Rena Shagan Associates, Inc. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. PROGRAM On Behalf of Nature This evening’s performance is approximately 75 minutes in duration and will be performed without intermission. PERFORMERS Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble Voices / Sidney Chen, Ellen Fisher, Katie Geissinger, Meredith Monk, Bruce Rameker, Allison Sniffin Winds / Bohdan Hilash Percussion / John Hollenbeck Keyboards, Violin, French horn / Allison Sniffin CREATIVE TEAM Music and Direction / Meredith Monk Lighting Design / Elaine Buckholtz Sound Design / Jody Elff Costumes and Scenography / Yoshio Yabara Score Preparation and Music Director / Allison Sniffin Production Manager / Philip Sandström Technical Director / Johnny Chanthavong Video Editing / Meredith Monk and Michael Grenadier Production Coordinator and Company Manager / Peter Sciscioli Following this evening’s performance, please feel free to remain in your seats and join us for a post-performance discussion with Ms. Monk. 3 ARTIST STATEMENT: MEREDITH MONK As I began working on On Behalf of One of the early inspirations for On Nature, I asked myself the question: Behalf of Nature was an essay by the “how would one create an ecological poet Gary Snyder, entitled “Writers art work that didn’t make more waste and the War Against Nature.” In it in the world?” Live performances he writes about the role of an artist leave no traces except, hopefully, in being that of a “spokesperson for the minds of audience members. This non-human entities communicating ephemeral aspect is both poignant to the human realm through dance and exhilarating. Sometimes though, or song.” This act of compassion, the desire for novelty and surface of “speaking on behalf of nature,” excitement leads to buying a lot of embodies and gives voice to those new things, spending a great deal of forces that often go unrecognized. On money for an experience that lasts Behalf of Nature is a meditation on our only a few hours. I wondered how one intimate connection to nature, its inner could make an alternative to that. structures, the fragility of its ecology, I started thinking about the French and our interdependence. anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and his notion of “bricolage”: the process of assembling or making something from what is already at hand. In pre-industrial societies, one object could function in many different ways by an act of imagination. We now speak of this process as re-purposing. Yoshio Yabara, the costume designer for On Behalf of Nature, implemented this concept by creating new garments with unique shapes for each performer, fashioned from his or her old clothing. Each costume inherently included aspects of that performer’s personal history contained in the original garments. This idea of spiraling around to the past to make something completely new is also a way of appreciating what is here in the present and working with what we have. The same principle extends to other elements in On Behalf of Nature. Photo (next spread): Meredith Monk; photographer: Julieta Cervantes. 4 ARTISTS Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, she has created such works as Juice: A director/choreographer, and creator of Theatre Cantata In 3 Installments (1969) new opera, music-theater works, films, and Ascension Variations (2009) for the and installations. Recognized as one of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the most unique and influential artists American Archeology #1: Roosevelt Island of our time, she is a pioneer in what is (1994). Ms. Monk’s award-winning films, now called “extended vocal technique” including Ellis Island (1981) and her first and “interdisciplinary performance.” Ms. feature, Book of Days (1988), have been Monk creates works that thrive at the seen throughout the world. Her music can intersection of music and movement, also be heard in films by such directors image and object, light and sound, as Jean-Luc Godard, David Byrne, and the discovering and weaving together new Coen Brothers. modes of perception. Her groundbreaking Since graduating Sarah Lawrence exploration of the voice as an instrument, College in 1964, Ms. Monk has received as an eloquent language in and of itself, numerous honors including the expands the boundaries of musical prestigious MacArthur “Genius” Award, composition, creating landscapes of two Guggenheim Fellowships, three sound that unearth feelings, energies, and “Obies” (including an award for Sustained memories for which there are no words. Achievement), and two “Bessie” awards Over the last 50 years, she has been hailed for Sustained Creative Achievement. More as “a magician of the voice” and “one of recently Ms. Monk was named one of America’s coolest composers.” Celebrated National Public Radio’s “50 Great Voices,” internationally, her work has been and received a 2012 Doris Duke Artist presented by BAM, Lincoln Center Festival, Award, a 2011 Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Houston Grand Opera, London’s Barbican Award for the Arts, and an inaugural USA Centre, and at major venues around the Prudential Fellow award in 2006. world. Among her many accolades, she was Among the many highlights of Ms. Monk’s recently named an Officer of the Order of performances from the last 20 years is her Arts and Letters by the Republic of France Vocal Offering for His Holiness the Dalai and the 2012 “Composer of the Year” by Lama as part of the World Festival of Sacred Musical America. In conjunction with her Music in Los Angeles in October 1999. 50th season of creating and performing, Several marathon performances of her work she was appointed the 2014–15 Richard have taken place in New York at the World and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Financial Center (1991), Lincoln Center Music Carnegie Hall. In September 2015, Ms. Festival (2000), Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (2005 Monk received the National Medal of Arts and 2015), Symphony Space (2008), and the from President Obama. Whitney Museum (2009). In February 2012, In 1968 Ms. Monk founded The House, a Ms. Monk was honored with a remix and company dedicated to an interdisciplinary interpretations CD, MONK MIX, featuring 25 approach to performance. In 1978 she artists from the jazz, pop, DJ, and new music founded Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble worlds. In March 2012, she premiered Realm to expand her musical textures and forms. Variations for six voices and small ensemble, As a pioneer in site-specific performance, commissioned by the San Francisco 5 6 7 Symphony, and performed in John Cage’s by ethnographic research in trance dance Song Books as part of the Symphony’s and rituals of South Asia, particularly American Mavericks Festival. She is the Sri Lanka. Since 1981, she has toured subject of two new books of interviews, solo work throughout Europe and the Conversations with Meredith Monk, by arts US, also directing large ensemble work critic and Performing Arts Journal editor reinterpreting myths and legends. Her film Bonnie Marranca, and Une voix mystique, by work, including documentaries, has been French author Jean-Louis Tallon. A recording included in festivals throughout the world. of On Behalf of Nature was released in She has received funding through the NEA, November 2016 on ECM Records. Art Matters Inc., Jerome Foundation, NYFA, and the Asian Cultural Council, winning a Sidney Chen (vocals) is a founding member 2004 Humanities Fellowship and a 2005 of The M6, a vocal sextet dedicated to Travel Grant. Ms. Fisher continues to teach Meredith Monk’s music. On Behalf of and collaborate with artists on community Nature is his first production as a member intergenerational and intercultural projects, of Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, after both domestically and internationally, and performing in Monk’s Realm Variations with recently served as a Fulbright Scholar in the San Francisco Symphony. Previously, Sri Lanka. Mr. Chen sang in the Meredith Monk Young Artists Concert at Carnegie’s Zankel Katie Geissinger (vocals) has performed Hall in 2006, and in Songs of Ascension with Meredith Monk worldwide in concert at BAM in 2009. He has also performed and theater pieces such as ATLAS, mercy, Monk’s music for solo voice at Oakland’s the Grammy-nominated impermanence, Garden of Memory. More recently, Mr. Songs of Ascension, On Behalf of Nature, Chen performed in the 45th anniversary and The Politics of Quiet, which received a celebration of Terry Riley’s In C organized Bessie award. Career highlights include the by the Kronos Quartet at Carnegie Hall, premiere of Bang on a Can’s Obie-winning a staged production of David Lang’s the The Carbon Copy Building (Canteloupe), little match girl passion by San Francisco appearing in Philip Glass and Robert Lyric Opera which toured to Denmark, and Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach (Elektra in Berio’s Sinfonia for eight soloists and Nonesuch), and performances as a soloist orchestra with the San Francisco new in Bach’s Magnificat, Honegger’s Le Roi music ensemble Volti.