We recently reread the New York Times’ tribute to Meredith Monk, who celebrates 50+ years as an avant garde performance artist, vocalist composer, vocalist, dancer, choreographer, director and filmmaker. Fifty years!!!
“I’ve been in fashion, out of fashion. I just keep trucking along. It’s an inner necessity to work, and that’s not going to change. I need to create. I need to.”
She made her reputation stretching her voice, and those of her collaborators, into primeval, wordless yowls, keens and rasps, placing those strange sounds within luminous, ambiguous theatrical and choreographic events
We’ve been listening to Monk for a long time now, moved by her singular music. We’ve marveled at her many abilities —video, choreography, composing— but mostly that she could push her voice into such wild territory. It seemed to us like it took some serious courage to do.
Wonder what it would be like to try?…
The top clip is from a video of excerpts for On Behalf of Nature, Monk’s new multidisciplinary performance piece. (You can watch more here).
We found it pretty amazing to run both videos at once and listen to their call.
