human utterance: Meredith Monk

"It’s a continual excavation process, you could say. It’s like being an archeologist of your own instrument as a kind of microcosm of the human voice, of human utterance, of sound itself. By digging into my own voice I’m uncovering feelings and energies for which we don’t have words — it’s like shades of feeling, early human utterance, and essential human nature. All these years, I’ve tried to keep renewing, keep risking and keep trying to find new things." (from "Authentic Voice: An Interview with Meredith Monk")


Doll's Head in Water

Here, part of Peter Greenaway's documentary "Four American Composers" (1983) about composer, "performer, director, vocalist, film-maker, and choreographer" Meredith Monk:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8
The documentary also here.


Gotham Lullaby

MySpace here.

"I've pretty much fought classification for years" she says. "I think that this idea of categories is something that's habitual behavior. I'm much more interested in working between the cracks of art forms. When people say, 'What are you?' I say, 'I'm not a noun, I'm a verb.' I'm very engaged in working with the voice, with the body, with visual images, and with this sense of multiplicity and perception really." (from here)

Não é propriamente música de cabeceira, nem sequer música para ouvir ou de fundo. Como Damien Hirst não serve para pôr em cima do toucador a "enfeitar", nem Richard Serra. Alguém tem de dar os passos em frente, os que não destroem mas que são a calçada dos próximos. Meredith Monk, John Cage, Phillip Glass, Samuel Beckett: as influências de Bruce Nauman.