YOU US WE ALL SHARA WORDEN, ANDREW ONDREJCAK, BOX (BAROQUE ORCHESTRATION X) INFO CREDITS assistant director Cécile Tonizzo dates music costume co-design Wed 18, Thu 19 June 2014 Shara Worden Zane Philstrom starting time text, direction, design light design 8.30 pm Andrew Ondrejcak Lutz Deppe venue cast choreography Theater Bellevue Shara Worden (Hope) Pedro Lozano running time Helga Davis (Virtue) sound engineer 1 hour 20 minutes, no interval Martin Gerke (Love) Koen Keevel running time Bernhard Landauer (Death) rehearsal conductor and English with Dutch surtitles Carlos Soto (Time) coach introduction music performed by Benjamin Gordon by Brendan Walsh BOX, cond. by Pieter Theuns stage and company manager 7.45 pm a consort of viols – Valerie Oliveiro meet the artist Liam Byrne, treble viol, bass viol production with Shara Worden, Andrew Pieter Vandeveire, bass viol BOX Office vzw in association with Ondrejcak, Pieter Theuns Christine Sticher, violone ArKtype Thu 19.6 after the performance an alta capella of winds – coproduction moderator Brendan Walsh Lambert Colson, cornett, flutes deSingel, Internationales websites Jon Birdsong, cornett, trumpet Sommerfestival Hamburg www.mybrightestdiamond.com Adam Woolf, sackbut (baroque with support by www.andrewondrejcak.com trombone) Vlaamse overheid, Huis Happaert www.boxcollective.be a continuo/rythm section – special thanks to www.arktype.org Anthony Romaniuk, harpsichord, Ellen Wezenbeek and Het Huis organ Happaert, Peter & Christophe Jutta Troch, baroque harp Bernaerts from Huis Bernaerts, Mattijs Vanderleen, drums, Laura Berman, Sofie Tack, Judith percussion Van Herck, Jan Devroede, Ayco Pieter Theuns, theorbo, artistic Duyster, Johanna & Wilbert, Ilse, HOLLAND FESTIVAL direction Hendrik-Jan, Lieve, Lieselot, and many many many more. world premiere Kampnagel, Hamburg, 16.8.2013 HOLLAND FESTIVAL PARTNERS HOOFDBEGUNSTIGER YOU US WE ALL Historically, various groups of musicians were on stage during the masque: a string ensemble, a group of lutes and often a wind You Us We All is a collaboration initiated by the Antwerp musicians’ ensemble as well. The line-up of BOX is loosely based on the musical collective, BOX. Together with New York writer, director and stage sounds of the masque. Here, too, we have three groups: a gamba con- designer Andrew Ondrejcak, and the likewise American pop singer sort (strings), an alta capella (loud wind instruments) and a continuo and composer Shara Worden, the group has come up with a show group with lute, harp and clavier. full of postmodern pastiche. You Us We All revives the 17th century English masque in a 21st century Baroque opera. Says Ondrejcak, Shara Worden not only wrote all of the music for You Us We All, but “Look at it as a reaction to the bare minimalist approach that holds sway also did all the arrangements. Purcell was floating through her mind in modern opera. In You Us We All, the anarchist in me comes out.” when she was thinking up the melodies for You Us We All, but the score is just as full of contemporary rhythms and American soul. In The masque, a grandly staged spectacle with dance, dialogue and this way, You Us We All ends up in a fascinating in-between space: music, won the hearts of aristocratic audiences in England during with no specific home but with a story that is about you and me, all the first half of the 17th century. The productionYou Us We All has of us. taken the masque as its starting point – not only in terms of content, but also in terms of form and musical colour. In the 16th century, Edited by Frederike Berntsen so-called ‘disguisings’, masked balls with a particular allegorical Source: Annemarie Peeters theme, had already been held at the court of Henry v111. Under Queen Elizabeth, they developed into the true masque. Here too, the dancers were disguised. But much more than had been the case with the disguisings, the masque ultimately grew into an actual produc- BIOGRAPHIES tion, with elaborate staging and a written script. Exuberant costumes The American composer, vocalist and multi-intrumentalist Shara Worden is and grandiose scenic machineries inspired by the French ‘ballets de best known as the lead singer of indie-rock band My Brightest Diamond. For cour’ or the Italian ‘intermedii’ were typical of the masque. Like the the last seven years, Worden has toured extensively with My Brightest Diamond. disguising, the masque also had an allegorical theme. The allegorical Worden has had a classical music education. In her performances she also intro- story often contained clearly articulated political or moral messages, duces other disciplines such as storytelling, custome design and puppetry. Her which naturally could only be understood by an audience that was last solo album All things will unwind (2012), which she performed at the Holland thoroughly familiar with the symbolic associations that were typi- Festival in 2012, showcases her exceptional qualities as a composer and vocalist. It’s an album of chamber pop music inspired by the city of Detroit. Worden has cally assigned to certain figures and storylines. In this manner, the performed at major venues such as the Sydney Opera House and Lincoln Center, performers of the masque, among whom were often members of the as well as on smaller stages such as House of Blues. She counts Bruce Dessner royal family or highly placed nobles, personified the divine virtues (The National), Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), David Byrne, Laurie Anderson and which were ascribed to the sovereign. Many people considered the The Decemberists among her friends and fans. They are just a few of the many allegorical content of the masque to be the essence of the entire event. who’ve fallen in love with Worden’s mystical voice and mythic storytelling. Worden studied opera at the University of North Texas and composition under Andrew Ondrejcak has already experimented with archetypal char- Padma Newsome and Kristy Kuster. As well as on her own material, she has worked with artists such as David Lang, The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, acters in earlier productions: ‘flat characters’, loaded with symbolic David Byrne, Bryce Dessner, Sarah Kikland Snider and Matthew Barney (on meaning, but without personal history. In You Us We All, he goes a River of Fundament; which also features at this festival). She has performed at step further. He lets the characters Love, Death, Hope and Virtue the Museum of Modern Art and Carnegie Hall in New York. This season she’s aimlessly wander around the stage as if they are in a decadent soap performing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the South Bank Centre and opera. The character Time is the true kingpin of this idle show. At the Barbican in London. first, he appears to be hardly more than an extra, sitting motionlessly on his chair with his back to the audience, but gradually it becomes Born and raised in Mississippi, The New York writer, director and set designer Andrew Ondrejcak studied architecture and painting at Savannah College of clear that he holds the key to the piece. Every once in a while, he Art and Design then playwriting at Brooklyn College. While making experimen- stands up and lashes out – ripping the masquerade to shreds, just tal theatre in New York, Ondrejcak was asked to conceptualize a fashion show; as was done in the real masque when the dancers took off their he quickly became one of New York’s most sought-after production designers disguises at the end. in the fashion industry, including Vogue (in the US, China, Germany and Italy), Bazaar, V, W and Numero. Since 2002, Ondrejcak has also been a lecturer at The historical masque always contained an ‘antimasque’ as well, a MoMA. His recent performances included Veneration # 2 (SCAD MUSEUM, burlesque intermezzo in which the noble values of the masque were 2013), Kings of Macedonia, with music by Shara Worden (Prelude Festival 2012) and Veneration #1: The Young Heir takes Possession of The Master’s Effects, curated turned upside down. The antimasque was peopled by comic or by Robert Wilson at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Ondrejcak re- grotesque beings, characters from the commedia dell’arte, demons, performed the work of Marina Abramovič for her exhibition The Artist is Present witches, birds, apes…. In You Us We All, the comic antimasque at MoMA in New York and at The Garage in Moscow (2011). seems to have burst its banks: the comic and the serious, the sublime Currently, Ondrejcak is developing projects for the Baryshnikov Arts Center and and the earthly continually flow into one another. For instance, the the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, as well as working on a new creation in character Death alternates metaphysical considerations over the collaboration with composer Bryce Dessner. relation between body and soul with the dry remark, “I fuck’ed Tina After having started on electric guitar, Pieter Theuns obtained a master’s yesterday”. The language that Ondrejcak has his exalted characters degree in classical guitar from the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven, Belgium. sing is also a comic mixture of old English and contemporary plati- Through the world of classical guitar he discovered the world of early music. tudes. In You Us We All, sung fan mail addressed to American pop At the Royal Brussels conservatory he went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in stars goes like this: “Dear Beyoncé, Sometimes I feel aloneith and thy lute and historical performance practice. music, alone, comfortith. Do you ever think that you’re like e’erybody In 2010 he founded BOX (baroque orchestration x) and the baroque trio else - just another human fartin’ around this damn’ed earth? Cause I Bel Ayre. Having played numerous concerts in venues such as the festival can identify with that feeling.