Meredith Monk – Dancing Voice, Singing Bodies
Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, dancer, director, filmmaker and choreographer. Monk’s work emphasizes the direct delivery of emotions by using vocals mostly with no text and the relation of space and sound. In the podcast “On Being with Krista Tippett”, the host described Meredith Monk as an archaeologist of the spirit, mind, body and voice. She believes that there are many feelings and emotions that can’t be labeled and as an artist, we must find ways to express that. Through her works, she pushes the boundaries of what we can do without words, reaching to places and human experiences where words can’t reach.
“The first thing Bessie taught me was not to take myself so seriously—that everything that I came up with was not perfect by any means; it could be thrown away (and mostly should be thrown away) in order to start again. She also taught all of us to be respectful of each other—to appreciate each person’s particular talent, styles, rates of growth for what they were. In other words, not to have a preconceived idea of what a body is, a dance is, a song is, a play is. This basic attitude (a kind of psychic anarchy) has given me the courage to try to find new ways of putting art forms together by working between the cracks; it has taught me never to assume anything; it has made the process of discovery one of the great joys of my life and it had kept me curious.”
1985 commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence College
In the podcast, Monk said the human voice is the original instrument. We are travelling back to the very beginning of utterance in a way that’s remembering how to be a human being.
Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble: Vessel Suite (Live, 1993):
https://youtu.be/fXLHjBFW2j8?si=O2e1WW2rAb_xCCml&t=79
The vocal ideas that Monk used in the piece “Epic” demonstrate that the voice can be like the body. An articulation and fluidity like the body and the spine have. It started with a staccato of one note, slowly introducing two singers layering on top of each other, very much like 3 solo dancers improvising hopping motion erratically in unison, coming together and parting ways again. The second melody passage glides in like the elongation of limbs expressing something that is ungraspable, following with careful articulations of joints with level changing. In the second piece, “Fire Dance”, the singers were dancing to the chant-like stuttering vocal of Monk’s. Every performer there have their distinct character and texture, telling stories with their positions, voices and movements. The way the stage was set up, and the lantern in front of the two performers moving sporadically made me think of the relationship between Fire and Shadow, and the singing is the sonic manifestation of the invisible being between them.
This way of thinking comforts me that making art is really about connecting our full spectrum of human experiences and trying our best to transcribe them into a piece. Art performs the ephemerality of life. In her words, uncovering the invisible and inexplicable.
She also talked about her early childhood having difficulties in body coordination, then she turned to Dalcroze Eurhythmics, a music education that approaches music learning through body and movement games which I’ll discuss in the next blog post.