t:1AIVlb111 Brooklyn Academy of Music 1996 Next Wave Festival Jim Dine, The Heart of BAM, 1996, Woodcut, 26-1/4" x 19-3/8" The Politics of Quiet BAM 1996 Next Wave Festival and 135th Anniversary Season are sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc. The Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board Harvey Lichtenstein President & Executive Producer presents The Politics of Quiet BAM Carey Playhouse Thursday, October 10, 1996 at 7 pm Friday and Saturday, October 11 and 12 at 8 pm Sunday, October 13 at 3 pm Running time: Conceived, directed and composed by Meredith Monk approximately ninety Choreography Meredith Monk in collaboration with the Ensemble minutes; there will be Associate Director Pablo Vela no intermission. Lighting Design Tony Giovannetti Sound Design David Meschter/Applied Audio Technologies Costume Design Carol Ann Pelletier Visual Design Paul Krajniak Object Design Debby Lee Cohen Performers (in order of appearance) Thomas Bogdan Stephen Kalm Janis Brenner Katie Geissinger Carlos Arevalo All ison Easter Ching Gonzalez Randall Wong Dina Emerson Theo Bleckmann Musicians Harry Huff: keyboards, voice Allison Sniffin: keyboards, french horn, violin, bowed psaltry, voice Children Clifford Lasky Emma Skove-Epes American companies participating in the Next Wave are sponsored by AT&T. The Politics of Quiet was co-commissioned by The House Foundation for the Arts, Inc., Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh Dance Council, Three Rivers Arts Festival and Walker Art Center. It is a privilege to work with these exceptional performers and associates, many of whom have distinguished careers of their own. I am deeply grateful for their generosity, patience and dedica­ tion in the process of creating The Politics of Quiet. This work would not have been the same without each artist's individual contribution. -Meredith Monk Photo by Brigitte Lacombe Production Manager Abbie H. Katz Production Coordinator Amy Santos Dramaturg/Assistant to the Director Maevefiona Butler Musical Director Harry Huff Production Assistants Seth Santoro, Katie Thompson Understudy Louis Meagley Apprentices Mercedes Bahleda, Maurice Richard Opening Chaos David Meschter/Applied Audio Technologies Children's Dance Sequence Dina Emerson Slide Photographer Roy Gumpel Photographer's Assistant Amy Silverman BAM Lobby Foyer Installation BAM Carey Playhouse Program Prayer 1; Meeting Songs; Demon Meditation; Folk Dance II Ancestors Chorale 1; Obsolete Objects; Ancestors Chorale 2 III Night (Elegy); Prayer 2/ Prayer 3 IV Time Pavanne; Birth of the Stars Music ©1996 Meredith Monk except Prayer 2/Prayer 3 solos (traditional) Sponsors The commissioning of The Politics of Quiet was made possible with funding from: Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust; Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund; National Endowment for the Arts; and New York State Council on the Arts. AT&T Foundation provided major corporate sponsorship. Additional support was provided by The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Harkness Foundations for Dance, Heathcote Art Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Meredith Monk is one of the most versatile, innovative and accom­ plished artists in this country. A pioneer in extended vocal technique, Monk is a vocal archeologist, composing music that digs down to the most fundamental human utterances. Most of the music she writes for the voice uses phonemes instead of text. Because words point to a particular meaning, she prefers word-less vocalizations in which the emotional weight is carried by the singer's naked voice. She has said, "To me, the voice itself is a language that is more eloquent than words. Within it are limitless landscapes, characters, textures, and colors." Monk composed, directed and choreographed her latest production, The Politics of Quiet, especially for her extraordinary vocal ensemble. Photo by Brigitte Lacombe She has assembled some of the finest and most adventurous performers active in new music and performance. The Politics of Quiet is a non-narrative work that echoes the structure of an oratorio or service, presenting an evening of music with images and move­ ment. Performed by a cast of ten singer/dancers, two instrumentalists and two children, the piece poses the question, "How do we find a contempla­ tive performance form for this time of speed and fragmentation in the Twentieth Century?" Music driven, The Politics of Quiet also explores the light and dark side of community and ancestral legacy. In its meditative mood and ritualistic struc­ ture, the piece contemplates the flow of time with wonder. The process of making the piece began with Monk's interests in Willa Cather's writings on the Nineteenth Century, Buddhist thought, and the development and consequences of technology. But The Politics of Quiet has evolved into a series of poetic transparencies that present a contemporary community who eschew character and situation to reveal the individual unadorned human being. When she began work on this piece, Monk considered how rapidly changing technology is impacting our lives. In the "Time Pavanne" section ofthe piece, she turned to an ecological metaphor, a primordial technology that has kept pace with the future. Bee colonies and hives offered a prototype community, they work with a complex technology that has transcended time; and bee's wax is used as a preservative. Children don bee-keeping costumes and boiling bee's wax is used to preserve and enshrine contemporary objects that may soon become relics of our own time. The Politics of Quiet recognizes the power of community and spirit of coop­ eration. In Monk's own words, "The Politics of Quiet is about slowing down enough to experience the moment; it's about shadow and light coexisting. Ultimately, it's about listening." Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, filmmaker, by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble entitled choreographer and director. Since graduating from Volcano Songs. Sarah Lawrence College in 1964, she has forged a singular vision of performance, seamlessly In 1991 ATLAS: an opera in three parts was crossing the traditional barriers between mediums, co-commissioned by The Houston Grand Opera, creating more than 100 works. A fourth genera­ Hancher Auditorium, Walker Art Center and The tion singer in her family, she is a pioneer in what American Music Theater Festival. It toured is now called extended vocal technique and domestically, and in Europe, culminating with interdisciplinary performance. the New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1992. The two disk recording is Monk has received numerous awards, including available on the ECM label. the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Ms. Monk has been a pioneer in site-specific Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, three Obies performance, creating Juice (1969) for the for theater, a Bessie for Susta ined Creative Guggenheim Museum and Minor Latham Achievement, the National Music Theater Award Playhouse, Needle-Brain Lloyd and the Systems in opera, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, the Kid: A Live Movie (1970) for the American Dance Venice Biennale First Prize in Music Theater, Festival at Connecticut College, and American sixteen ASCAP Awards for musical Composition, Archeology # 1: Roosevelt Island (1994). the Dance Magazine Award, the Rockefeller Fellowship for Distinguished Choreography and Monk has experimented with film in her works First Prize for Performance Programming from since the mid 1960s, ranging from 16 Millimeter The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Earrings (1966) to her critically acclaimed solo Volcano Songs (1994). She has explored the In 1968, she formed The House, a company medium more fully in a series of award winning dedicated to the interdisciplinary approach to films including Ellis Island (1981), which won the performance. In 1978, she founded Meredith CINE Golden Eagle Award, and her first feature, Monk and Vocal Ensemble to perform her unique Book Of Days (1988), which was aired on PBS, vocal compositions. She has also mounted her released theatrically, and selected for the Whitney work with outside companies such as The White Museum of American Art's 1981 Biennial. Oak Dance Project, The SchaubOhne Ensemble, Pacific Mozart Ensemble and the San Francisco During a career that spans 30 years, she has been Sym phony Choi r. acclaimed by audiences and critics as a major creative force in the performing arts. "When the Since 1965, Monk has worked as a composer, time comes, perhaps a hundred years from now, exploring the potential of the human voice. She to tally up achievements in the performing arts began working with her own instrument, trying during the last third of the present century, one to discover the myriad characters, landscapes, name that seems sure to loom large is that of colors and textures within her three octave range, Meredith Monk. In originality, in scope, in depth, and then formed Meredith Monk and Vocal there are few to rival her." (Alan M. Kriegsman, Ensemble to play with more complex musical Washington Post). possibilities. She has made more than a dozen recordings, most of which are with ECM New Series. Dolmen Music (ECM New Series) and Our Lady of Late: The Vanguard Tapes (Wergo) were both honored with the German Critics Prize for Best Records of 1981 and 1986. Catalyst Records recently released Musica Sacra's new compact disk Monk and the Abbess: The Music of Meredith Monk and Hildegard von Bingen. In early 1997, ECM will release a new recording Carlos Arevalo is a native of Panama City. He Janis Brenner, dancer/ choreographer/singer/ made his professional debut in 1981 at the teacher, is Artistic Director of Janis Brenner & Festival International du Theatre in Nancy, France Dancers in NY. Recent awards: Leach Fellowship with Blondell Cummings. He has performed in for Outstanding Achievement in the Performing operas, solo recitals, film and dance/theater pieces Arts, 1996 Lester Horton Award for Choreography at Dance Theater Workshop, Jacob's Pillow, The in Los Angeles.