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Hi, everybody. [shouts from audience]
Wow, first name basis with my audience. I like that.
My name's David. I'm with the Whole Music Club, a small rock club
in the basement of Coffman Union, on campus at the University of
Minnesota. I'd like to welcome you here at the McGuire Theater.
We don't get out very much, but last spring we did a couple of
Making Music episodes here with David Lonstreth of the Dirty
Projectors, and with Jason Moran. And they went really well, so
we're back for a couple more.
Tonight we have Morgan Thorson and Alan Sparhawk. They're going to
be talking about their new piece, "Heaven," which is a dance
performance that's happening next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday,
here at the McGuire Theater. Tickets still available. I would
encourage you to come and check that out. I think that once you
hear them talk about it, you'll be enthralled and interested.
And in a couple of weeks from now, on March 11th, we're going to be
doing another Making Music episode with Dave King, drummer
extraordinaire. He was actually our first guest on Making Music
five years ago, and we were overwhelmed, of course, by Dave King.
And so we're looking forward to being overwhelmed by Dave King in a
couple of weeks, as well. And that's going along with the two-night
World King Event, here on March 12th and 13th, here at the McGuire
Theater. Check for tickets on that one, too. I'm sure it'll be a
great time.
And then in April we've got a couple more Making Music episodes at
the Whole Music Club. Mankwe Ndosi of Atmosphere and spoken word
fame is going to be our guest. And a band that I'm really excited
about, called So Percussion, is going to be a guest on Making
Music, along with their show at the Southern Theater where they're
going to be debuting a Steve Reich piece for marimbas, I guess. It
should be really interesting. There's going to be some great
audience participation in the So Percussion show as well.
These are all free events. Check the website for more details. Or I
think you might have postcards.
I wanted to thank the Walker Art Center staff, and especially the
tech staff here at the McGuire theater for bending over backwards
to make sure that this kind of crazy show goes on and gets off
without a hitch.
I also want to thank The Onion, Radio K, mnartists.org, for being
sponsors of the entire Making Music series.
We're going to have some questions near the end of the show. We're
doing some videotaping, so if you would raise your hand to ask a
question and someone will meet you with a microphone, we would sure
appreciate it.
And you'll be able to see this show and some past Making Music
shows on the Walker Art Center channel online. And you can also see
five years of Making Music series events shows at the Whole Music
Club YouTube channel.
Without any further ado, I'd like to please welcome David Everest,
Morgan Thorson, and Alan Sparhawk.
[applause]
Alan, are you going to lead us in
a hymn here?
Sure.
Need some help with your jacket?
Thanks for coming, everybody. [music]
[applause]
Thanks, Alan, is there anything you'd like to say about that song
before we move on?
No, that's OK.
OK. Well, we're here to talk about this new dance piece that's
happening next week, called "Heaven." We have a great video that's
kind of a nice little overview of a lot of the elements that are
happening in it, that was shot at this part of the [Inaudible 7:16]
fellowship/residence that you guys had last winter.
And we're going to show that to start out, so you guys can see a
little bit of - this little five-minute video that'll give you a
little context of what we're going to be talking about tonight and
the show that's happening next week. It was shot during the process
of your residency. Do you want to say anything about the video,
Morgan?
The video is an overview of our residency. I feel like I'm just
repeating what you said. You get a taste of the visual elements
that obviously we can't replay for you here tonight, and we don't
have dancers. So it's a visual element that helps you get a sense
of some of the movement. We could talk a little bit more about the
components of how the collaboration worked after.
Yeah, yeah. OK. This is from the [Inaudible 8:11] video we're going
to see here. [Video plays]
[music]
I decided that heaven was a feeling, a pleasing feeling. It was
something I knew everyone was capable of feeling, and I knew it was
in everyone. So it's an ideal. It's like saying, "Let your light
shine." [music]
Part of my research has taken to looking at not only contemporary
churches, but to monastic life and what that entails.
[music]
There are a couple of different techniques. One of them is borrowed
shape note singing or the sacred harp singing, it's more of an
ecstatic shouting kind of singing, and it's very loud. And it's not
bashful. It's loud and it's emphatic and it's full of joy. And then
we also want to go to the other extreme, where it's delicate,
you're barely making a pitch at all. It's almost like prayerful,
sonic whispers. We want to work around the edges of these
things, rather than going right to the heart of it, believing that working
the edges will help people go to the heart without us telling
them to do so.
[music]
I think of ecstasy in this piece, in kind of two different ways,
there at the edge. On is through a kind of slow and steady
intentional approach, where it feels like not much is happening.
And I think that, in itself, is a form of ecstasy, when you start
to meditate, when you start to drop into some other kind of state
due to the pure, simple intention of the action.
On the other hand, we have these other kinds of manifestations of
choreography that are more brutal and more heaving and more
violent. Not that they are two people acting on each other
violently, but they are impulses erupting through the body.
[silence]
I did start thinking about the Transcendental movement, and how in
the 1800s, suddenly a lot of different kinds of American churches
sprung out of Christianity. People came to this country for
religious freedom, yet there is so much persecution. There is so
many contradictions and lies within the American church and the
American history of religion. [music]
So based on that, I became in the movement, the Universalist
movement, and the Transcendental movement, which is about God is in
everything, God is in nature. I resonate most with that idea that
here and now is all we have, and there's beauty all around us. That
is something that is worthy of our devotion now.
[music]
I think it's always been important to me to reflect on what's
happening in our times, what's happening in contemporary culture,
and I feel that I'm often responding to that, and often use my
dances as a way to create social commentary. It is my hope that through the commentary,
that some shifts will occur for the viewers. Shifts in understanding,
a shift in consciousness, or a shift in that they may
want to take some kind of action. And I know that's very idealistic,
but I really believe in the power of the body, and I believe in
"problematizing" the body in such a way that it can open people's
minds.
[music]
All right.
Flashback.
Excellent.
So, I guess before we jump into that, I'd like to start with a
little more context, Morgan, with you, and how you became a
choreographer. Growing up as a kid, at what point did choreography
and dance become such a big part of your life? Did you know you
wanted to be a dancer at a young age?
My mom made me go to dance classes because I basically couldn't sit
still.
So how were you when she was putting you in classes?
Four or five. And way back then I think it was called "creative
movement." But I had an Isadora Duncan-esque kind of teacher who
wore flow-y scarves and had us do fun like leaping choreography
across the floor. That's a really clear image, something that I
connect to really often, is Miss Dodell.
Is there anything you want to say about this image that we're
looking at right now?
That's me at my birthday party at my grandmother's house. I must be
- I bet you guys could guess better than I could, because I don't
have kids. Two? One? Two-and-a-half? I don't know.
Three, four.
Three, four. I got a train set. That's the track, and the train
makes tones as it goes over the track. Then just in and out of dancing, growing up
middle class, so there where a lot of other interests, too. I did
a lot of sports. I immediately drew a fondness for the discipline
of sports and competition and dance.
And I think those things come together for me often. Discipline is
sort of a kind of harsh word, and now we say "dance practice,"
which is a little more gentle and a little more spiritual, I think.
So that's sort of the speed version. I wanted to be a ballerina. My
mom took me to Lincoln Center to see the New York City Ballet, and
I saw all the big narrative ballets. I had a foot fetish. I was
really enamored by the ballerinas, and I wanted to be a ballerina.
But when I hit adolescence, the news came that I didn't have the
body for a ballerina. So skipping ahead to sports seemed more
apropos for my body size/structure.
What kind of sports?
I played field hockey and lacrosse, swimming, diving. A little bit
of tennis, but not seriously. The team sports, lacrosse was one of
my main sports, and field hockey.
Do you get to play those sports anymore?
No. That was junior high. Actually I played lacrosse in high
school, too. I was on varsity, the varsity team in 10th grade. And
then I became a burnout, and quit all sports, and quite everything
except for trying to keep my grades at a decent level.
And I discovered hanging out, and all those kinds of things that
teenagers do, including smoking pot. Yeah, so that was an important
rite of passage, I have to admit. And that also influenced my
career, because I think the stresses of growing up - which also
took me into drug addiction.
Again, there was this craving for physical sensation. That's been a
theme throughout my whole life, and I think my drug addiction was
part of that. That also took me out of dance and the discipline of
dance, because it's really hard to be a rigorous practitioner of
dance and be a junkie at the same time. So speeding ahead, sobriety
and finishing college and then it was again, like what am I going
to do with my life. And...
Now in college, were you studying dance in college?
I did for a year and a half. I was a dance major at UC Boulder and
I had problems in Boulder. And so I transferred to Barnard and I
had fewer problems in New York City. I was just more at home, not
only in the east coast but in a big, urban environment. I always
wanted to live in a big city. And I met Cynthia Novak, for those of
you who are dance historians. She's an important dance artist because she
was an anthropologist and she taught dance every summer at Wesleyan
and did a lot of improvising with Richard Bull. And they're
kind of important, again in the historical continuum in dance in the
Judson-esque era. But anyway, she introduced me to improvisation
and when I started improvising is when I realized that I didn't
have to follow all those other rules and techniques.
And I could kind of still dance and make up my own rules and enjoy
the discipline of making up steps, learning steps, learning phrase
work, creating images, all of those things and make dances. So
really, once I figured that out I decided that the only way I was
going to be able to dance, this body, was if I made up the steps.
Because no one else was going to let me dance their stuff, so I had
to make it up. So that's basically...
So it was improvisation that led you to wanting to be a
choreographer?
I would say improvisation opened the door and then I could see, oh
I don't have to follow someone else's regiment. I could make up my
own regiment, I could make up the steps, and then I could be a
dancer.
Right. And so at what point did you come to Minneapolis, come to
the twin cities?
I came to Minneapolis in '91 after being in Duluth for a year.
OK.
In '90.
And you've been here ever since?
I've been here ever since, yeah.
And then what was your... You were in "Concrete Farm." My first
experience with you as a dancer and as a person at all was way back
in the '90s with this collective "Concrete Farm." Do you want to
talk about that a little bit how that came together?
Sure. So I feel like I'm just trying to speed through this
because... I don't know, just because. There's a lot to talk about.
[laughter]
I feel like Minneapolis after I got sober, it was like my third
attempt at being a dancer choreographer, dance artist. And once I
got here I met some like minded people, people with similar
aesthetics, people with similar sort of grassroots drive to create
situations for dance. And this is where "Concrete Farm" comes in.
And there were initially 11 of us and when we started talking and
having meetings, trying to raise money. And eventually there ended
up only being five of us. And one of our projects was renting a truck
and driving all over Minnesota and pulling this truck into parking
lots and getting up on the truck and just performing our stuff.
And then packing it up and driving off to the next parking lot, or
the next parade or the next... Where else did we perform? Mostly
parking lots.
[laughter]
But all over the state of Minnesota?
All over Minnesota.
Something like 18 different spots, right? I mean, it was quite a
tour and you were on the cover of "City Pages." These are photos
from the "City Pages."
These are great photos. [laughter]
They're classics. And I hope that you never have to look at them
again. They're just so funny.
Do you want to name the other four members of "Concrete Farm?"
Yes! Winona Sorenson, and there's Kristen Van Loon who still lives
here in Minneapolis and works with Arwen Wilder as "Hijack" and
they're both still here. Susan Scalp is still here and she's a
pilates practitioner. And I'm still here. And those are the five
women in that photo. And that photo, we can see it here.
And so "Concrete Farm" was this collective. How did you guys
approach creating work and making dances?
It was a collage, you know?
Did you take turns choreographing a section?
We took turns, we set up scores, we made things collectively, we
made things individually. And then just cut and pasted them
together. We had long conversations, we had short conversations. I
mean, you name it, we tried it all. Yeah, we just really wanted to
perform and do it together and share the expense and the excitement
and the fear and the hutzpah. And just get whatever we could done
and get it out there to people in Minneapolis and across the state.
It was pretty exciting, actually.
And if any of you are interested in "Concrete Farm," "City Pages"
has their archive of that article. It's really an interesting...
The writer actually followed you guys on tour all over the state.
Yeah. Michael Tortorello had this amazing station wagon and he
drove with us all over the state. And I forget what... There was a
big word on the side. It was a white station wagon and I can't
remember what the word was. Like we'd bunk down in people's garages
and in their attics and he was there with us camping out the whole
way. It was really funny.
Documenting it all very carefully.
Yep. And he wrote this article and it was pretty radical at the
time. Because there had never been kind of a, let's say,
contemporary dance company or group on the cover of "City Pages" at
that time. So it was pretty exciting.
I don't know if there has been since either for that matter.
There you go! There you go. [laughter]
All right. And so now if we've... Since that time you then became a
choreographer in your own right. I mean, just having your work and
being kind of the boss.
Yeah. The great thing about "Concrete Farm" is we each got to try
things. And we learned how to... We made a lot of mistakes. We made
so many mistakes and we learned so much together and not one of us
had to take responsibility for it. We all took responsibility for
it and we learned from each other and it was really exciting. And
then slowly we each felt enough courage and I don't know. Yeah,
felt like we had enough experience to maybe take total
responsibility for a piece of art. And that's been happening since 1996 or 1997.
I guess we did our last show in '99 together. And I did my first
show on my own in 2000. So I feel like that's an important year
for me. That was sort of the first year of me working alone. And
fund raising on my own, and envisioning the work, and finding the
people to help me make it and making it. So it's been like a solid 10
years now of doing that on my own.
And so "Heaven," this piece we're showing. It premiered last fall
in Houston, right?
Yes.
And then you had a run in New York and you've had a few others
leading up to now, to the Walker show. How did "Heaven" begin? And
with this piece, what were the first kernels of inspiration or idea
that you had to make this piece?
There's so many different ways of getting into this conversation
and I just want to be careful because I often spin in many
directions. I knew I wanted to... [laughter]
I was really interested in perfection and how that works on the
body and on behavior. And I was interested in discipline and how
people seek out discipline in culture. Specifically through
religion or rituals is maybe a better word. And I was interested in
the parallels that I saw between dance practice and religion. And
part of this parallel that I saw stemmed from my own passion and
love for dance. It's that simple.
What were the elements as you tried to explore this? In terms of
movement or in terms sound or in terms of... I mean, you've talked
about architectural elements in the piece.
Can you just say the first thing that you said? What were the
elements of that I explored?
Yeah.
OK.
Or once you started with this idea of perfection and of finding out
how your passion and your religion of dance and your needing dance
as a discipline.
The elements that I explored were space and, I would say,
restraint.
Limitation?
Limitation. Cutting back, cutting down,
finding something essential in how the body or a community of bodies--a
group--moves together. So I think that's...
Can you give an example of how that might have manifested in a
phrase or in terms of...
Well, in the piece we do a processional--a walking processional.
It's a form of worship that exists in many different religious
institutions, and I right away was drawn to it because I liked how
simple the form was. I liked how communal, and that anyone could do
it. And I liked that it could delineate our area--our space.
So simply just defining what the architecture is, you can find your
way through the space, and then it gives the interior dimension
through us actually making this reverential pass around the
exterior.
And by procession, just describe that. You were talking about the
group walking in unison...
Yes, the group walks...
...very slowly.
Yes.
Each foot is being placed. So it's like a walking meditation
almost. And we've got a shot of that, and that's happening
throughout the piece. The piece opens with that, and it's
constantly coming back to that. What about the sound and music? Did
you right away know what kinds of sounds you wanted, or was there
any sounds that were...
It's so interesting how things converge, and they are seemingly
disparate at the time when I was thinking about perfection. And not
only in a religious sense, but also how I saw manifestations of
paradise in our culture--how paradise was commodified to sell
products. Just religious underpinnings everywhere. It was
everywhere. I couldn't escape it. And I found that same thread moving into the
music of The Beach Boys somehow. I thought, Oh, this is the most
ideal perfect American band. They're brothers. They're white.
They're from California. What could be better than that?
And they all sing these incredible harmonies.
And the story behind them is so incredibly tragic that I said, "Oh,
what could be more American than this? This pain and angst of the
perfect facade." So I was really interested in that, how brutal
Brian Wilson's upbringing was, and how completely genius some of
his music was. It's so tragically sad it makes me want to cry.
Well, when you first started out with working on heaven, you had
all this. The Beach Boys' music was really a central part of your
first experiments with getting your dancers together and working on
stuff and having them actually be singing. Actually, the dancers
are singing and vocalizing.
Yeah, the vocal a cappella, vocalizing, harmonies--to me there's a
really obvious connection to religious environments. Singing is a
reverential form of worship, and I saw that in The Beach Boys. And
I saw that in Brian Wilson's life a little bit.
That connection's kind of wild. I mean I know it's not a very
linear connection, but to me it made a lot of sense. And I guess
that's just the liberty that you get to make when you're an artist
[laughs] because you can be slightly tangential and it makes total
sense.
Right. And now when we talk about The Beach Boys, The Beach Boys
that a lot of people think of is the huge hit songs--Surfing U. S.
A. and things like that. But The Beach Boys' music that I heard
when you were first starting out "Working on Heaven" were these
other tracks that were much more grandiose and had these darker
elements and more down-to-earth. Do you want to play? We have a list here of
some of them that we could play just to give people a little sense
of the...
Yeah. We could play "Surf's Up." The thing that's so incredible
about this song is that Brian Wilson didn't write the lyrics. Van
Parks...
Van *** Parks.
Van *** Parks. Thank you. He wrote the lyrics and was ridiculed by
some of the band because of the poetic nature of the lyrics. And I
find that unbelievable and also, again, a part of the sort of sad,
tragic story of The Beach Boys. They're so fanciful. The lyrics are
so fanciful. I just fell in love with the song. So yeah, let's go
It's like one of those songs that I'd call a "perfect song."
[The Beach Boys' song "Surf's Up" plays]
"A diamond necklace played the pawn.
Hand in hand some drummed along.
Oh, to a handsome man and baton.
A blind class aristocracy.
Back through the opera glass you see.
The pit and the pendulum drawn.
Columnated ruins domino.
Canvass the town and brush the backdrop.
Are you sleeping?
Hung velvet overtaken me, Dim chandelier awaken me.
To a song dissolved in the dawn.
The music hall a costly bow."
[Music continues in background]
Were you considering using The Beach Boys' music in the piece at
that time at all or...
There was a time when we experimented, and we used the music. And
we tried to sing the music, and I think it was a valiant effort.
And there were certainly times we tried to do some a cappella
harmonies that I thought were really successful, but I realize
there's no re-creating this song. And I just thought, "What we need
is Alan Sparhawk." [laughter]
We need someone who has some sort of sensitivity...
[laughs]
...and aesthetic understanding of playing the edges...
Who's perfect. Someone who's had that perfection ...
And who understands the necessity of being oblique, and...
Yeah, yeah. [laughter]
I just thought, "We're making original movement. Let's make
original sound." And I knew that I couldn't make the sound even
though I always feel like I'm on the verge of becoming a musician.
I'm on the verge of becoming a lighting designer. I'm on the verge
of becoming a visual artist, which is ridiculous. But anyway.
So you...
So Alan and I...
...contacted Alan. And Alan, do you remember her first contacting
you? Had you ever worked with a dance company or with a
choreographer before?
No, not at all. I mean...
Or ever seen a contemporary dance before?
somewhat closely a number of years ago with a guy who did a
documentary on Merce Cunningham and John Cage. And I guess beyond
that I was exposed to at least the Michael Jordan of modern...
[laughter]
...modern and contemporary dance, who I was really blown away by
right away. It was the first time doing something like this. I mean
doing things for film or whatever is a little more controlled, and
we have a couple ways to approach it. But with this it was
immediately very much an extremely collaborative... You know, I think there are ways in which
musicians work with dancers often where it's just very separate.
The music is set, and the choreography is set to that. I don't know.
I suppose there are people that compose for dance, but with this
it obvious that not only were we going to be performing at the
same time, but the process was going to be involving us, as well.
I mean, she was writing the same time as we were writing.
Morgan came up to Duluth, visited the house, brought her computer
with her, and showed us some footage of what they were working on.
Gave us a little background, talked about architecture.
The first thing that I saw, or the first thing that I remember that
has been the guiding light for the whole thing, is the opening
sequence with the processional. To me, that set the tone. I could
tell...
I don't know, I just felt right away, even though I did not feel
like I knew very much about dance, I knew immediately this was
someone who was really pushing me to extremes, and really trying to
make some large statements with the medium. I don't know. That
image, and that imagery was immediately what made us feel like we
could work with it.
And then you came down to the cities for some rehearsals?
Yes, came down for some rehearsals, did some writing.
What was that first rehearsal like? Do you remember?
Did we do some rehearsals? I think I came and just kind of hung
out. We did some, what do you call them, thespian games or
something. [Audience laughter]
That was in the gym.
Feeling auras and things like that. Getting to know what we're
doing a little bit, getting to know each other.
We did some where we would try to cultivate this uncensored state.
We would play music...
Yep, improvised.
Improvised with total abandon. It was total chaos, it was
fantastic.
Yeah.
Did you know that you weren't just going to be doing the music in
this piece right from the beginning, or did you think: OK, I'll
make some music for this, and then all of a sudden you're ...
Well, yeah, there was a hint that we probably would end up doing
some movement. I think, for sure, Morgan has done her best to open
that up as much as we could allow. So yeah, yeah. I mean, Mimi is a
very self-conscious and private person. I find myself pretty
surprised that she's as physically engaged with the piece as she
is. But yeah, it took some coaxing, but I think
mostly because early on immediately everything was open and everybody
was...
Jumping in.
Jumping in. I guess it'd be a lot more difficult if you fight it.
Right. [Audience laughter]
One of the things at those early rehearsals...
I'm gullible. I fall for those "getting to know each other" games
every time. [Audience laughter]
Start crying and stuff.
I felt like right away there was a desire to just move forward with
the band, and it was really exciting. I felt that from Alan, and
from Mim, too. I think the first couple of days we did a variety of
singing and moving, and it was pretty open. But I tried to cultivate that state of improvisation
and openness for a long time in the rehearsals, and we
did that through MANCC, too, and then after awhile that phase kind
of drifted away.
But anyway, I felt Al and Mim very engaged.
How do you feel like those first couple of rehearsals, where you
guys were actually physically involved, maybe informed the rest of
your approach to coming up with the music?
Good question.
I mean, rather than you sitting on the sidelines?
I don't know that it necessarily informed specific things as much
as it sort of informs your state of mind, and the way you view who
you're collaborating with. I think there's a million ways to find common
ground, whether it's a matter of "OK, we've got to really get to
know each other before we can find a language that we can work with."
Or you can set parameters, I think, and really be thorough
with a very controlled amount, and come up with something.
But I don't know. This one just was a matter of spending the time
and getting to know the people, and I think that then just made it
easy to try whatever. I was able to try things that I thought, at
least for me, were pushing the limits of what I've tried.
Right. It sounds like she gave you a lot of... There was that
freedom element from the very beginning. It's interesting you talking about how improvisation
was really what opened the door to you seeing choreography
as this craft that you could really embrace and dig into. But
similarly, then, your whole approach is to let others, also, when
you're in your creative process, your dancers and collaborators, give
them also an improvisational setting and context to just
work, and work.
Your choreography has that sense that your dancers are contributing
all the time with their own sensibilities and things, and you're
there helping to steer the whole thing and ultimately put it all
together.
But there's that input, and it seems like Alan just plugged into
that same process and was included in that; wasn't the musician or
the composer on the side having to compose, but was immediately
integrated to the movement as much as the whole meaning behind the
piece.
One of the things that was important for me from the start, and I
knew that it was something I wanted to try to do, was to have the
dance and the music live together in the same space and be balanced
visually and physically, so that it wasn't a situation where Alan
and Mim were over there and we were using this space over here.
I wanted there to be democracy in the space, and there still isn't,
but I feel that it's more synergistic. One thing leads to another,
and one thing is necessary for the other to exist, so there's a
relationship that's very direct. I thank Alan and Mim for being
open enough to have it work out that way.
Your piece is kind of like that. There are other elements where
you're sort of allowing the backdrop, or the props, to show, and
the underlying... I don't know. You're not hiding the fact that
there's someone over here, and that there's someone over there
at the organ. You're not hiding some of the props and the fact that
the cloud is actually a fan with a piece of cloth over it or something
like that. That's a theme you've come back to, I think, a lot,
and it's sort of not hiding the process and the fact that it's
in this space, and that it is a theater situation.
And it seems like the design... I mean, the theater right now is in
the process of being set up for the piece, and you've got this set
with, it's all white, and everyone, as you saw, in costume in the
video we saw. There's some photos of the work from down at MANCC.
Everything's in white. Al's playing this off-white guitar through a
white amp, and things are covered up. This organ gets covered in
white as well, and this little station here with the pillows. It
seems kind of obvious that it's this perfection and this heaven
thing, but do you want to talk a little bit about that design
element?
Sure. I think Lenore and I and Emmett and Alan and Mim and Karen
Sherman, we were all at MANCC and kind of thinking about - we met
for three days and just talked about all of these conceptual and
underpinnings that were involved in this piece and trying to sort
of funnel them, or put them all through a funnel and come out with
some sort of concrete way of thinking about the works before we
really delved in and started dancing and making music in the
studio. But from that we thought, let's have it be
a whiteout. And thinking in this context that white is celestial, and
we want to be celestial or move in that direction, and also
knowing that - you know, you think about whiteness, it's hard
to maintain it in terms of color, and so there's bound to be a film
of dinginess that is revealed or is built up.
And we were interested in that, too, in the way that you just
couldn't quite - or the object or the element just can't really
stay perfectly pristine. And so that backing away from something
pure or something perfect was as important as the perfect thing
itself. So that's why the white: the white room, the white
environment.
Right. And when you were down at MANCC, there was this - I mean,
Ellen, how did you begin to - like, musically what were your
reference points, or as far as what were the first things you
started thinking in terms of music for this piece?
Well, initially we - it's very into the voices. A lot of the stuff
initially was worked out. A lot of the group stuff was developed. I
think we went through many different versions and ideas of what
sort of vocalizations we could do. At MANCC, we were exposed to
shape note singing, which is a form of choir singing that
originates from the southern United States, and I don't know, you
might have some information on that at some point.
Yeah, we've got some. Is anyone familiar with shape note singing or
Sacred Harp singing? Yeah, you can explain it a little bit.
Yeah, Sacred Harp Singing. I'll talk - we can talk about it at some
point. But yeah, that - simple songs, as sort of - as soon as you
start thinking about using a lot of voices, the question is, OK, do
you use words, and what words? And for me, I found it fairly
difficult to find the right words, the most appropriate words. It
seems like it's really hard to find the right phrasing to depict
Heaven, or do it without detracting from - I don't know, how do you
make the sound of a voice without sort of screwing that up with
words? And for me, I don't know, there are a few
things that developed. I think one word is "listen." "Listen" and "I
know" are two phrases that kind of come in and out. And I guess
for me, I found that sort of resonated with me personally, whether it's
religious or just this sense of OK, what is ascension, or what
is Heaven, or what is aspiring, or what is it to reach for perfection
or - yeah, perfection, or a light, or to become one with
that light, I would think.
Yeah, for me the human experience is about - and sort of aspiring
to that is: listen. To listen and then to know. You listen and then
you know. And so that's a recurring thing that comes in and out.
The piece ends with a shape note song that we sing. There are a
couple of songs that I use that are either sort of referential to
more - a pop song with lyrics and chords and whatnot. I think
within the piece they are isolated enough that the words don't get
in the way.
But yeah, there are a few different things. We tried whispering and
talking and singing, singing falsetto, holding notes, talking in
falsetto, talking, singing. There's one section where we're just
talking. Everybody is just saying something, and essentially the
goal is to make the sound of voices. That actually comes in and out
quite a bit in the piece, just the sound of voices.
And there was actually a lot of work to kind of go through all the
possibilities of that and find what did the job, as much as just -
it's not as simple as, "OK, everybody whisper. OK, everybody
whisper for the next ten minutes." Good luck.
[laughter]
So you started - so voices were the first instrument, really of
this piece?
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
So how did you - really, one of the first things you hear in the
piece is you are layering your voice...
Yeah. It's important.
In a loop recorder, and kind of layering it over and over. As you
added other instruments and other textures and sounds, what was
driving that as far as - you end up playing guitar. You've got some
other samples that you've got in a sampler.
Yeah.
There's the organ.
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I kind of go through some of the things
- yeah, up front here Mimi and I do some vocal loop things that go
with the processional, and for me that just has to do with that
meditative sort of circular building, voices build in chords that -
I don't know, I think the sound of a voice and the high female
voice sort of has a certain connotation, I think, for us
culturally, and it sets that in there. I don't know, it's mostly
pretty - it's improvised, but it's something that we know where
we're trying to get to.
And you're layering. You're just layering and layering voices and
voices.
Just laying vocals on top of each other and then manipulating them.
Do you have any of those recorded, any of that...
Well there's - I don't know. I mean, it's just sort of a simple...
[Electronically manipulated layered voices singing]
This is sort of a simple... [Electronically manipulated layered voices
singing]
Anyway... [Electronically manipulated layered voices
singing]
And you're using this, that sampler, a couple times throughout the
piece with different sounds that you've got. You know, one is
voices, but then you've got some other sounds that you've got in
there.
Yeah.
More textural. I don't know, most of the ...
[Electronically manipulated layered voices singing]
[Electronic beats added]
And I suppose the guitar, I was really sort of reluctant to use the
guitar at all. Because that's always been [Inaudible 54:59] . But
I'm using it for a very specific - I was trying to be very literal,
sort of a very obvious connotation. I think it's obvious around the
guitar. But also the organ here is sort of the thing.
And this is a fold-up organ. It's a pump organ. And the tag on it
says it was made in 1860, but I think it's more maybe 1890s or
20th century. These guys toward WWI and WWII, they made organs for
the military like this. This is the chaplain's organ. It just folds
down. You chuck it on the ship, chuck it on at church, and then
you hit the beach.
[music]
Air, pumping air. [music]
Anyway.
What was it about the organ? Was it the air, was it just that
fact....
Yeah. It sounds like a little church, doesn't it?
[laughter]
I don't know. It just seems like an interesting instrument to bring
for dance.
That was sort of like a lovely accident, a happy accident, that you
had an organ.
Yeah, it was. We thought, oh, this might be a good thing for this.
At first I liked the idea of using instruments that didn't need
electricity. Unfortunately, we didn't keep to that.
[laughter]
As he was coming up with different things like this, the samples
that he was using, did you have a sense of steering that at all, or
were you waiting to see how things happened? Did you have any
intention around....
The music?
Those choices, as far as the sounds and instruments and sources?
I knew that I wanted - well, no, no, no. That's not true. One of
the things that we talked about early on was that vocal - Alan had
said, "Oh, I've been interested in making multiple parts for
voices, this'll be a good challenge for me." And I knew I wanted a cappella vocal work,
that was one thing. And then beyond that I didn't really know how
the other instrumentation... He mentioned that he had
an organ and I thought that sounded great.
And then as we started to do our research, it became clear to me
that, oh, it would be nice - after doing our experience with the
Sacred Harp - it would be nice to throw in something perhaps that's
a little more literal, but it's out of a folk tradition. The form
itself is about the will and desire to sing. It doesn't require -
again, it's like the processional. It's about your will and desire
to participate. There doesn't have to be any virtuosity involved,
you just get to do it.
And that's seems to be kind of a theme in this piece. It's about
desire and coming together to do something together. And that
intention is, in itself, perfect.
Really the shape notes stuff and part of the program there.
Yeah, so shape notes, you were in Tallahassee, is where that MANCC
fellowship residency happens, and that's kind of right in the area
where Georgia and Alabama, where it's....
Its roots.
Its roots, and where it's really alive right now, it seems still,
even though it's such an old form.
What was that guy's name again?
His name is Ross.
A guy names Ross....
On the video, is that the guy?
Yeah. You can see it in the video. It was a session where they were
all sitting around trying to sing. And it's going like this, and
this is how they direct the rhythm for shape notes singing. And
it's not accompanied by any instruments.
No, it's a cappella.
It's a cappella. Why don't you just play some?
Yeah, we've got some.
They sing. They have a note system that's designed for people who
don't know how to read music, that's based on each note as a little
shape.
I think we've got some images that we can use.
Fa-sol-la.
There it is.
Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la, based on shapes. So depending on relative pitch
and the key of the song, they'll start out pitching the song. And
then they'll sing the whole song melody just using the do-re-mi-fa-
sol-la-ti-do, but mostly you hear the fa-sol-la. Fa-sol-la is the -
if you think of a note and the distance from one not to another, fa
-sol-la is sort of where... It's hard to explain and I don't actually
know very much about it. I don't actually know how to read music. But
I hear that this is how they do it.
So why don't you play some. You'll hear them actually sing out the
fa-sol-la sections, and then they'll do the lyrics for the whole
song.
[Music clip plays]
The people all sit facing each other, singing the songs.
[Music clips continues]
That's such a good example, because the lyrics aren't complicated
either. "The Angel of the Lord came down and his glory shown
around." They repeat it like four or five times, but it's the
different way the voices and different words are extended, how they
interact that makes this sort of overall feeling in the room. And
they sing at each other.
Right. We've got a diagram of the seating that we might be able to
pull up here. There it is. So, by section each groups sits and
they're singing their parts together. And the leader, I believe,
stands in the middle, right? And he's giving the tempo, facing the
tenors, apparently.
That I didn't know.
Yeah, the Wikipedia. [laughter]
This is the sheet music, this is the shape note version of "Amazing
Grace." The words are the same, but it's - these shapes are being
used relative...
They're sort of a folk way of people being able to read music.
Right. People who couldn't maybe read music on - it's more complex,
for singing hymns, basically.
Yeah.
It started in England, I guess, about, like, 200 years ago, and has
had this revival.
I think there's a group in Minneapolis-St. Paul that meets from
time to time.
There are often - the core of their community, of the Harp singing
community, is about 50, 60 now, and so they're really anxious to
get a younger group of people, a younger generation involved,
because it's an a cappella tradition and they need people to
actually sing it to keep the tradition alive. So if you like to
sing, I really recommend it. It's like a good workout.
Well, you guys got to go out to kind of a convention when you were
down there.
I was, yeah.
That's part of - and saw that. And seeing that, did you know
immediately that you wanted to incorporated it in...
Well, at first I couldn't quite get my head around what I was going
to. They just kept saying, "Come on, you've got to go, you've got
to go." And I drove two hours into Alabama, and we went into this
old pioneer community, and there was a meeting house, and it was
just jammed full of people singing these songs, separated like in
the floor plan that you just saw, and just singing their hearts
out. And it's non-denominational. It's just about
getting together and singing. The songs are often religious in
tone, but it's a non- denominational - like, club, I suppose. And
so there were people - it was not about faith. It was about the glory
of singing. Which is - that's kind of what sold me on it.
And how did that - how did you guys incorporate that into the piece
and into your approach to the music in the piece. I mean, you said
you have a shape note song at the end of the piece, but...
Yeah. Well, we used a lot of the language of it, the Fa-Sol-La
thing, with a lot of the things we tried vocally, just for the
piece, just all the different possibilities for what people could
do. We did some pieces where people would substitute the Fa-Sol-La
notes for a song that we would sing, and then we'd sort of slowly
phase in and out into the words, or sometimes go from organization
as in the Fa-Sol-La notes into chaos, or back out, or one way or
the other. Unfortunately, most of that stuff isn't in the final
piece. [laughs] But that had to be there, man.
Part of the process, I think. [laughter]
It's the process, man. [whispers dramatically] It's the process.
So in terms of the actual movement vocabulary that you started
using, what movement did you find - or what was your research
process like for figuring out what the movement was going to be
like, besides these improvisations with everybody kind of being in
- losing their inhibitions and stuff like that.
Well, I was - basically, the first half of the show is walking in
different patterns and different groupings, and I was interested in
how that opened space and closed it and framed bodies and played
with time. And from that I just tried to be patient. I just tried
to be patient and let something really simple find - like walking -
I tried to be patient until I could feel or see another whole.
And it's not just walking, it's actually walking with a hitch in
the knee, and then it's walking with a hitch in the knee which goes
into the hip. I just tried to be patient and let these really
simple forms breathe new life into me as a choreographer and open
my eyes and my ears and my body. So there's that approach.
Then there was something that was a little more - I want to say
direct, but a little more, kind of, evident, because it involved
infusing my body with as many impulses as I could possibly manage
in a moment, and sort of explosions. So I took explosions and
walking and tried to find a place where those two things could
exist together, where impulses are, like coursing through your body
and escaping suddenly. That was an image that we worked with:
impulses escaping, or violently escaping. And I think that still
lives in the piece and is a solo that one of the dancers works
with.
You also talked about endurance.
We talked about endurance. We did for a while - this was after
MANCC - we did this exercise where we would stand with our arms out
as long as we could.
You want to - you want to...
Do you want me to do that?
Sure.
OK, so... [claps] This is the part where we interact with the
audience, if you want to.
We're going to do it.
You're not going to do it?
I said we're going to do it.
OK, we're going to do it. So, everybody gets to stand up. And I'll
give you the special tweak to it if you get really tired. So what
we did is we just held our arms out for as long as we could, and
this was our choreography. And if your arms just start to burn and
they feel like they're going to fall off and there's nothing more
that you can do and you just feel like you're going to die, then
you raise your arms up a little more. [laughter]
So you go from an empathetic crucifix to, like, a reaching for the
sky. So that's - I'm kind of speeding this ahead, because I've done
this with people where you literally just keep your arms here for
five minutes, and just - you have to suffer through it. And you do
it as a group, and you help each other along, and you become aware
of - the first thing I could become aware of when I do this
exercise with a group is my hearing. But I won't tonight, because
I'm talking, and I have my microphone on, and there's a lot of
ambient sound, and I'm doing a demonstration. But normally, that's what would happen. My
ears would open dramatically and I'd become aware of my environment.
And also I have a stage light on me, which makes it a
little strange. Anyway, so we could probably do this, actually, for
- I bet for seven minutes with this group, as a big group. But
we won't do that.
Anyway, so when it really hurts, then you just get to raise your
arms up and you think of something. You know, you might - OK, so
what you're supposed to do, actually, is you observe yourself.
While you're doing this exercise, you observe yourself. What twists
and turns is your psyche, is your imagination, is your mind, is
your thought processes - what's going on while you're doing this?
You're supposed to become aware of or drop into your thought
processes.
And one of the things I've noticed with the groups is that some
people start thinking about other parts of their body. They move
their attention away from the area of pain. They look out the
window. They imagine themselves being suspended by strings from
their hands, maybe. They change their focus. They look at their
colleagues. They close their eyes. A lot of people close their
eyes. And I know that sometimes I start shifting my weight when the
sensation is overwhelming.
But one of the things I really like to do is just go into my
imagination. "Oh, I'm a bird, I'm a plane." I know this sounds
really Kindergarten-ish, but it really helps. Or, "I'm floating on
a cloud. I have big cushions under my arms. My arms are coming out
of my pelvis." Like - this is part of my private world.
[laughter]
Your arms come out of your pelvis? I like it. Whoa, yeah.
All those things. OK, so the added little bonus I was going to give
you guys is that if you have enough room you get to rotate. You get
to rotate. And that should make it a little bit easier, just a
little bit easier. And then one other little added bonus is you get
to flip your palm down and look down your arm at somebody. Like
it's a guiding rudder, like you are looking into somebody's soul
down your arm. So you use your arm as a guide. You follow
your arm with your eyes, out your fingertips to somebody's soul. And
now you are performing the empathetic cross. Aren't you hot! Thank
you.
[applause]
You feeling this?
Yes. That was good. Empathetic cross.
One other little device that we use is, which we just did, is an
interpretation or a translation of that's an embodiment or an
interpretation of the cross. And I was interested in the icon and
religious iconography and this piece just sort of how it has
influenced me over time or how I have ignored it largely,
specifically the cross or tried to ignore it.
But I see it, it's everywhere, in a lot of different ways, either
very literally or not so literally. In floor plans and I don't mean
necessarily the Jesus cross but just this four right angles. And
that comes into the choreography a lot, that choreography floor
plan.
Again, in the Sacred Harp layout, too. And one of the things you
add that you used in a lot of your research was architecture and
iconography. You had a book that you were working with and I know
down in Florida you went on a tour and went and visited a lot of
churches down there just to see that stuff. We got some of the
images and I don't know if you want to talk about any of the... as
we just look at them.
Well, excuse me, I think space is so mysterious and worship is
again it's something that we all know about, living in this culture
or visiting this culture, because on every horizon there's a church
or a steeple, pretty much. And what's my point? My point is that housing
of space is for a particular purpose, for the purpose of worship
and I was interested in not only the older versions of that in
our culture, but also the contemporary versions of that in particular
the mega church movement and how that movement has the focus
of that movement has been to make religion accessible and to get
people into the church.
This guy, the Crystal Cathedral guy, whose name I can never
remember, his whole thesis was to make the walls transparent so you
could actually see the worship. So there are literally the surface
of this church is glass so that you can see the worship and there's
a parking lot around that whole thing. So you can drive to that
church and that parking lot is right off the freeway. So it's like
all about getting people to church the easiest way possible.
So housing the un-churched is this guy's philosophy and he actually
taught workshops to evangelical preachers and taught them how to
get people to their churches. Those are the two or three simple
steps: location next to a highway, have a parking lot, make the
worship space accessible, including the mall-izing of church,
making it a common space that's very identifiable to people, mall-
like.
So when I went around and I went to a mega church out in Brooklyn
Center, I actually have to confess that I loved going there. And I
went often to the Youth Services, the 6:00 the super cool rock and
roll services, completely outfitted with state-of-the-art laser
show, live video feed on like these crazy dollies. So you got
videographers like rocking and reeling through the space and it's
totally participatory. You get to dance. It was amazing.
Anyway, again it was all about the parking and the accessibility.
It looked like a mall. It looked at hotel. It looked like a movie
theater. Yeah. So how that influenced space particularly how that
message, how that desire to fill the churches influenced space and
I was really interested in that. I don't think that is actually in
my piece, but that piece of research just opened my mind to a lot
of ideas about: what is space? How do we define it? And how does
dance define space?
So I really wanted to make that a material. I wanted to make it
tangible in the dance, how it shifts and changes. And I think we do
that at times in this piece. We make it tangible either through the
use of bodies, through framing, through the use of time, slowing
things down, speeding things up, through departure. You can really
sense space when people leave a spot suddenly. The subtraction of a
body makes space very evident.
Through changing settlements, through sound. Sound, that's what I
was going to say about the loop that Alan played earlier is that
it's a very simple tonal score, but it's very dense and it has a
very clear space to it. That's how I perceive it.
There's a real striking moment in the piece.
[Indistinct]
To me, when I saw it where it goes from the beginning of the piece
there's this amplified sound. You start out with the vocals being
looped and layering them and layering them and layering them. And
at a certain point, all the amplified sound goes gone and it's
entirely just acoustic acapela voices and all the sound is, there's
no amplified sound. And all of a sudden it's an experience, it's
like that space is created sonically where suddenly the audience
is actually, instead of being hit with the amplified sound, they
all are drawn into the natural sound of just the dancers on the stage
making sounds. Again, it's an interested special contrast,
sonically.
Alan, I'm wondering between the two of you as you were making were
there any major decisions or little decisions that you were making
as you were, as the sound was being designed and as you were in the
process that seemed like looking back with kind of a crucial moment
of making a conscious decision one way or another to have something
in or to not have something in or to go a certain direction at all?
Or for you just as you were working on something and you were
trying something and then decided: ah...
No, it was all very...
You guys didn't get into fisticuffs over...
Oh, we fought a lot. But, no I don't think... No, it was always
sort of, I don't know. I don't have an answer for that.
[laughter]
Do you keep a lot of the improvisatory elements for yourself as you
are doing it? Or do you stick to a score? How much ...
Score is definitely specific things that need to happen at certain
times. Within that is varying degree of improvisation or queuing
off of what's going on that particular night. There's some things
that sort of you're... whether it's the loop or something
electronic that you are sort of messaging and manipulating for a
while and it can, depending on the night, it hopefully doesn't...
You lose handle of it and I don't know for the most part, I think
improvisation is way more satisfying when you sort of give it at
least some parameters. You begin here and stop here. Or you only
get to use this or you got to say something that means something
with this and you got this much time. And I found it very easy to
play off of the gestures and the movement of what Morgan and
her dancers are doing. All of them are fairly - they have experience
as well with singing and sound and stuff, so it was fairly easy
to communicate and get people to try things. I'm not sure, I wish
I had a good anecdote.
One of the things that I've appreciated over time - and it's funny,
because this piece changes from venue to venue. Each venue provides
opportunities or challenges, and so we go to great lengths. And the
dancers are so, so generous, and we sometimes have to change things
or sometimes redevelop things, because each space, like I said,
sort of begs to be interacted with in a particular way.
So as that has been shaping itself, the staging and the
choreography, I've been having the privilege to hear some of these
scores flush out through the performances, and it's really
remarkable how these scores have grown and become quite complicated
and really beautiful, and each - sometimes I'll hear another kind
of nuance. I'll have a more nuanced approach to listening, and I'll
hear something new, and I don't know if it's Alan actually putting
something new in it or if I'm listening more acutely, but it's just
really exciting to have the sound reveal itself to me over time.
So that's one of the things that has been really nice, is as we're
kind of honing in choreographically on the piece and we're trying
to find out what's as perfect as it can be in this particular
place, I get to hear the sound kind of going through its own
process along that parallel path. That's exciting.
The other thing is that I think that at first Alan was resistant to
playing a duet with Mim, and at first I didn't think of it, and as
we developed the piece, we had two residencies still, there was no
duet with Alan and Mim, and it became really evident that that was
one thing that was really missing from the work.
And so you came to that realization and I came to that realization,
and then right before we opened in Houston we - the duet became a
part of the show, which was really exciting, because I think it is
really integral to the show.
Sorry I was so reluctant. [laughter]
I don't know, I just don't want to go to the obvious.
Well, I think that's one of the things about this piece. Some
things are really - like, the processional is obvious. It's an
obvious - we're borrowing, and the form is so steady, and the
chorus form itself comes back as a choreographic element, and it's
obvious. I mean, you'll know right away where it comes from, and
that's intentional. So I feel like it's within the parameters. And
also the tone of the song is oblique enough so that it can speak to
a lot of different things and still have that sort of pain and
sorrow that we're all used to. [laughs]
It's a song about heaven.
Is it, really?
Yeah. Be There? Yeah, yeah.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that it was that specific.
You don't listen to anything that I do. [laughter]
There's a lot of mystery in it for me.
It's a beautiful song.
It's a beautiful song.
It's a really wonderful moment when it happens, and if it's not
obvious, I saw this piece twice in New York when I went out there,
and it's just incredible. I was so glad.
[Inaudible 1:26:48]
I mean, didn't expect to go to see it twice, but after I saw it
once I had to go back. It's really beautiful, and I really loved
it. So I highly recommend if any of you don't have your tickets yet
for next week, try to come check it out. We're going to turn it to
you guys, if you have any questions. We can bring up the house lights a little
but, and if you've got a question just raise your hand and one of the
ushers will bring the microphone to you to ask a question. And while
you're thinking if you have a question to ask, I'll just - Alan,
I was going to ask you, how has touring dance been different
from touring as a rock and roll band?
Oh, yeah. It's very different, man.
[laughs]
Yeah. You dance people, [exhales] pretty tough scene.
[laughter]
All that rehearsal, rehearse, rehearse, and you get to do it like
two or three times, that's it. It's crazy. People are nervous,
everything is on the line.
Is it more - do you get more nervous for - have you gotten more
nervous for the Heaven shows than just a regular concert?
It's been interesting to go in. I mean, well, to explain, with
music, believe it or not, musicians don't really rehearse that
much. [laughter]
So you go out and generally you go out and you do the show a lot.
And so part of your process and your engagement with what you're
creating is being able to perform it every night, and you kind of
are able to change and sort of tweak things a little bit along, and
your process kind of goes along as you're performing.
Whereas in dance there's definitely this sense of, "OK, we have to
start this thing, generate material, finish the whole piece, put
all this work into it, and do it 15 different times in different
ways, and then present it." And it sort of - it hangs on this last
thing. It's just very different. Plus I don't know, the music world
doesn't have to plan stuff out like a year and a half in advance.
It's true.
I mean, it's crazy. I gained a great respect, actually. The dancers
- I wish, actually, some of the dancers could have been here.
Karen's here.
Karen's here. Karen Sherman, one of the dancers.
I think Max was going to maybe...
[calls] Karen and Max.
Karen and Max. Max is working, so tip well tonight.
[laughter]
Where is Max?
[off-mic] He's not here.
He's not here. OK.
Well, he's in the building anyway.
Karen's here. Anyway.
Karen, is there anything you wanted to add to the discussion here?
No? OK.
No, no. [Inaudible 1:29:40] She doesn't like talking.
What were you going to say to Karen? [laughter]
Huh?
You were going to say something.
I don't know what.
[laughs]
Oh, the dancers. The dancers are really great.
[laughs]
Boy, that's news. OK.
It's true. The dancers are the most generous.
I guess we do have a question here.
I have a question for both Morgan and Alan. For Morgan, it looks
like you incorporated some Christian elements into your production,
but did you feel obligated to incorporate any elements from non-
Christian traditions, other faith traditions? And then for.
Would you do something like this product again?
Take it.
OK. Christian elements? I kind of tried to stay within the realm of
Christianity because that's what I knew from my own upbringing, and
I though - I just - religion is so huge and overwhelming in itself,
and there are so many. I mean, I did buy a book about religions and
cults, and it's this thick, and it's all with different religions
in it. So the processional also crosses denominations:
Buddhists, Christians, I bet there are more. There is
a little bit of bowing that goes on, and I know that there is a little
bit of - some people have told me about their experiences
at the Wailing Wall, and there is a particular name for that movement
which I can't think of at the moment, and then there is
also - it's also a greeting in some cultures, and it's also
- dovening. And so...
It's kneeling.
Yeah. Kneeling, genuflecting, which we don't actually do that much
of. But there's a lot of - there's sort of an extrapolation on
bowing and dropping over. So yes and no, is the answer to that
question.
Yeah. I'm actually, I was pretty surprised how ambiguous you were
with that, I think. I guess as a person who sort of grew up in a
fairly religious family or whatever, sort of knowing that language
a lot, so I was really surprised. I think most people, when they address religion,
get really hung up on those symbols. I've found that as the piece
was going along you actually freed yourself a lot more of some
of those symbols.
Early on, you were a little bit more obvious with things that
looked denominational or was like, OK, this is a different
reference to this. I was really pleased to see that a lot of that
stuff sort of faded and you were able to go with I guess what I
would call more primal spiritual or more primal religious imagery
and movement.
You reference the cross there, but I think even just referencing
that almost kind of gives it a different, a false perspective of
how much of that is in there. There is that, just slightly, but I
think unfortunately it's probably the only one that sticks out.
And your question was are you going to continue to do this?
Oh, would I do this? Sure. Yeah, I like doing this kind of stuff.
Takes a lot of time, though.
Yes, you have a question right here?
No money in it. [laughter]
Yeah, my question, it might be... hi.
Hi.
It might be too personal, but I just wondered, in the process of
making this piece, if you feel or if you've learned that your own
religiousness or your own experience with religion or spirituality
is different. Has the process of this piece changed how you
practice, maybe, in your life, for either of you?
For me, it has opened my mind enormously and part of, another
element that drew me to this project was religious fundamentalism.
I interacted with some people who were fundamentalist Christians at
one point in my life recently and it was very unpleasant. I've felt
myself really just prickling inside. At one point I said, oh, I'm going to put
a sign on my door that says: no, I don't want any Christians selling
anything coming to my house. Then I thought I'm not comfortable
with that idea, selling religion, that is.
So I thought, why am I so intolerant of these people? There was a
deep judgment there. So I have taken the time to become familiar
with what's so important, the importance of belief and faith in
people's lives.
I don't take that so much for granted and I think I have a better
ability to concentrate. I think I have more faith in my own self as
a spiritual person and I can better define my own art-making as
essential to my life force, i.e., as spiritual.
And I used to feel kind of weirdly embarrassed by that and I don't
feel embarrassed by that anymore. I want to be conscious of my
life. I just want to be conscious. Even though I spend a fair
amount of time watching TV, I want to be conscious. That was a
joke, but [laughter] .
For myself, I think it actually strengthened my faith. Whether it's
just the different perspective, seeing elements in the piece that
are sort of a little closer to my iconography, seeing them sort of
exist and being embodied by other people was really interesting for
me. I found, actually, a lot of... I don't know how much research
you did into Mormonism or any particular things, but I thought
there was a couple of really interesting things that happened in
the piece that are very, very distinctly Mormon, for some reason.
Like there are some ritualistic things in Mormonism that...
Which part?
Well, more specifically, the two people here at this, I'm going to
call it...
The two Mormons. [laughter]
The two Mormons at the altar, it is a very...
That's a particular ritual that's...
That's a particular image and particularly significant thing and I
thought, I don't know, sort of allowing my mind to say, OK, I'm
going to play along and let myself be honest with this and let this
part of my religion or my spiritual experience be part of that.
I think at first I was a little reluctant because I guess
personally, I think everyone tends to want to hold those identities
close to themselves and they don't want to see it as much as they
think they do. But then... not sure where I'm going with this,
but...
You were going to tell me the other points in the piece that remind
you of Mormonism.
Well, we brought in the fa-so-la stuff mutated into a children's
song. The organ obviously is a reference to that. Some of the
movement, especially the way you have couples, the interaction
between two characters. I don't know, not necessarily trying to get
specific, but point being, because at first I saw those elements
and was a little reluctant, but then found it very satisfying
and spiritual and faith-building to sort of accept that and
let the piece be an act of worship and let those parallels empower
and sort of be the catalyst for making that an actual spiritual
experience, not unlike anything that I wouldn't experience in just
the religion. I don't know if that's anything, but... more questions,
or did you... ?
I just want to say that as a result of this project I found out
that my great-grandfather was converted by a Mormon in Sweden and
was given money to move to Utah to join the church and paid off his
voyage in a mine, working in a mine. My grandfather was raised Mormon and then
was converted by an evangelical preacher in New York City. So
I learned a little bit more about my own history, which my parents
have been strangely silent about. I find it quite odd that I just
found this out like a year and a half ago. So for me, religion has
been sort of a weird class thing that has played itself out in
my life and there was only really one religion to be and that was
Episcopalian and I don't know why that is. Who knows?
All right, unless there's another burning question out there, I
think we're going to wrap up. Thank you all so much for coming out
to make music. The next one's in two weeks, here on the stage with
Dave King, who will make you laugh, I can... and that's going to be
quite a weekend of music and we're previewing that.
Thank you ...
Next week is when you have to come to see Heaven. If you at all can
make it, you won't be sorry. It's really great.
Thank you.
And thank you guys for being on here.
Thank you, David.
Thanks, everybody, for coming out. [applause] .