KITKA: Meredith Monk's "Jewish Storyteller/Dance/Dream" from BOOK OF DAYS & "The Rally" from QUARRY

“Jewish Storyteller / Dance / Dream”
From Book of Days (1988)
Music by Meredith Monk
Book of Days is a film about time, originally drawing parallels between the Middle Ages, a time of war, plague and fear of the Apocalypse, with modern times of racial and religious conflict, the AIDS epidemic, and fear of nuclear annihilation. In light of the current pandemic, the cyclical nature of such phenomena has made itself known once more. While the film provides no answers, it nevertheless is a tribute to vision and the imagination, and a poetic incantation of that which connects us.
“The Rally”
From QUARRY (1976)
Music by Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk created QUARRY: an opera in three movements as a live stage work between 1975-’76 with her company, The House, as a mosaic of images, movement, dialogue, film, sound, light and music. A meditation on WWII and recurring cycles of intolerance, fascism, and cruelty in history, QUARRY centers on a sick American child (played by Monk) whose world darkens as her illness progresses. Considered a masterwork of the 20th century, the piece is as prescient and relevant today as it was 40 years ago, with its portrayal of the deleterious effect of an autocratic society on the collective mind, body and spirit. It is at once a myth, a documentary and a memorial.
Meredith Monk describes “The Rally” in a 1985 NY Times interview:
''There's a scene called 'The Rally,' based on the Nazi youth thing - about developing your body into something hard. I took the simplest things, exercises done in a violent way and very guttural kinds of sounds; in one way, the scene is seductive, and in another it's horrifying. The piece seems much more to the point today than it was in 1976. When we were working on it in the summer of 1975, I was very much aware that it was the 30th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima; this time around, I hardly realized that it was 40 years after V-E Day. But I was aware then that certain forces were accumulating - right-wing, conservative forces. I guess I must have had a kind of glimpse of what is happening now.''
To view Meredith Monk’s films BOOK OF DAYS and QUARRY in their entirety, visit:
www.meredithmonk.org/store/on...
Performed by Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble
Shira Cion, Corinne Sykes, Barbara Byers, Juliana Graffagna, Kelly Atkins, Briget Boyle, Caitlin Tabacay Austin, and Michele Simon
Recorded live at The Freight and Salvage, Berkeley, CA on March 15, 2015
Opening piano music: Excerpt from “Ellis Island” by Meredith Monk,
recorded on the 2014 album Meredith Monk Piano Songs
Performed by Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker
(ECM 2374)
For more information, please visit:
Meredithmonk.org
Kitka.org
Photo of Meredith Monk by F. Scott Schaefer

[@alessandrafornero6275]

Che figata!

[@karencilman3002]

Thank you for posting this. It's inspired writing and singing!

[@jacopomabanfibio4808]

I love Meredith Monk's work so much

[@jennifergreermusic]

GORGEOUS!!!!