goTriad.com

Defining Meredith Monk's work can be a bit tricky. At times, she is a composer, a vocalist, a film director, a performer or a choreographer.

At times, she's all of the above, at once.

The Triad will have the opportunity to see this ground-breaking multidisciplinary artist when Monk performs as part of Wake Forest University's Secrest Artist Series.

The concert performance will feature Monk's solo vocal work as well as duets with longtime collaborator Theo Bleckmann.

The first half of the performance will be something of a retrospective of Monk's solo vocal pieces. In the second half, she and Bleckmann will perform works from her 1990 CD "Facing North."

* * *

For a generation of theater, performance artists and singers, Monk is one of a kind. Her pioneering work as a performer, composer and vocalist inspires rapturous praise. Icelandic singer/songwriter Bjork was so excited to meet Monk during a 2007 radio interview she brought along a notebook full of questions.
"It was a very moving interview and very moving in that she is something of a spiritual daughter," Monk said recently by phone.

Describing what Monk does can be as challenging as her performances. She's not a singer in the traditional sense of the word. She uses her voice as a musical instrument, and it's an instrument with remarkable range.

Many consider Monk one of the great purveyors of what is known as "extended vocal technique." Even though some may consider her work esoteric, her performances are lauded for their emotional depth.

Monk burst on to the scene in New York in the 1960s, founding The House, a performance group that created works using a variety of artistic disciplines. In 1978, she formed a vocal ensemble, which expanded her work as a composer and singer. Her vocal work has appeared on countless recordings and in numerous films, including the Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowksi." She has created multimedia works and performed in ground-breaking solo performances, such as "Education of the Girl Child," an opera.

Through the years her work has received the highest recognition, including the MacArthur "Genius" award, two Guggenheim fellowships, three Obie awards given to Off-Broadway work and, in 2006, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

This year she and her vocal ensemble were nominated for a Grammy for the CD "Impermanence." Monk says the nomination - which was her first - was a surprise.

"It was kind of out of nowhere. It was a little like finally making it to the cheerleading squad," she said, laughing. "So, in a way, it was very exciting."

* * *

Performance artist is the label that's often given to Monk. It's a term that calls to mind a performer rolling around on stage making strange noises that are largely incomprehensible. These days, Monk self-identifies as a composer, but she won't cringe if you throw in performance artist, as well.

"I remember when that term came into vogue in the late '70s," she said. "For me it does have a kind of historical context. What I like about the term is it really shows that this person has an interdisciplinary kind of vision. In that way I feel close to it."

Lynn Book, the director of the creativity program at Wake Forest University and an interdisciplinary artist herself, says that Monk's work is avant-garde but that she uses her voice to show the depth of the human spirit. She says that, unlike some performance artists, audiences recognize the profound humanity and heart in her work.

In addition to her performance at Wake Forest, Monk is one of the featured guests at "Creativity: Worlds in the Making," a national symposium at the university (March 18-20). Monk will give the closing keynote address, open only to those registered for the symposium.

The event will bring together experts from fields as diverse as social innovation, performance and the sciences. Monk's address will focus on art as a spiritual practice, but she's excited about being part of an interdisciplinary dialogue about creativity.

"It sounds very exciting to me. I love hearing what scientists have to say about reality. It's really helpful for these diverse groups of people to meet," she said.

Monk is used to working with diverse groups and pulling them together. Throughout her career she has directed and organized massive site-specific performances that have turned places such as New York City's Roosevelt Island into one large stage.

"American Archeology No. 1: Roosevelt Island" featured a cast of 40 extras, which included senior citizens, children, a horse and Monk's own group of singers, dancers and actors. The first part of that 1994 performance took place on the northern end of the island near a 19th-century insane asylum. In the hour-long interval, the entire audience moved to the southern end for the second act. The piece evoked the history of the island from present day to an ending that featured a "dance of death" on the former site of a small-pox hospital.

This month Monk directed another site-specific piece in the rotunda at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City with more than 120 performers.

"What I really love about working on a site is that basically it's animating space, and it's also, in a way, sharing the wonder of space and places," she said. "It's also making it so people will never see that space in the same way again. It's like being a film director of an epic, a performer and a painter simultaneously."

In February, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City presented a four-hour one-day-only marathon performance spanning 43 years of Monk's work. She says she enjoys revisiting these pieces and hopes the work will have a life with future generations.

"What I think about my music is that, even with the ensemble, to pass on some of these principles is not that easy. There are certain things that I do very intuitively," she said.

Monk says she hopes her work leaves people with "a sense of magic and aliveness" in a world where so much communication is filtered through technology.

"I want the work to have a lot of heart," she said. "I feel like we're living in a world where most of our experience is secondary, and I think that open-heartedness is a primary experience."

Michael Huie is a freelance contributor. Contact him at mhuie@bellsouth.net.

Newsletter

Learn More

topCars

featured ads

TriadMarketplace.com