Meredith Monk (PAJ Books: Art + Performance)

Meredith Monk (PAJ Books: Art + Performance)

Review Meredith Monk, avant-garde sorceress of offstage theater, has choreographed such inimitable performances as a pageant at the Guggenheim, a specatcle in a parking lot, and an epic tale at Ellis Island. This collection of writings by Monk herself, along with interviews, reviews, essays, storyboard drawings, and photos, captures the dancer-choreographer on site, 'working between the cracks... where theater becomes cinema.'. (Village Voice)Meredith Monk and Rachel Rosenthal... focus on two of the most influential female performance artists in America. The books include interviews, critical essays, and production notes for specific works, plus extensive introductions by scholars and critics. (Chronicle of Higher Education) "I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema."-Meredith MonkMeredith Monk has startled and enthralled audiences since the early 1960s. Her visionary work as composer, playwright, choreographer, filmmaker, singer, and dancer has helped to define the American avant garde and earned numerous honors and awards-including the culminating honor of a MacArthur fellowship in 1995. In Meredith Monk, Deborah Jowitt brings us an absorbing portrait of an artist whose career spans three decades of American avant-garde performance. Collecting writings by Monk herself, along with significant reviews, essays, interviews, and photographs of Monk's unique performance events, the book establishes her as one of the great treasures of contemporary American culture.With other radical artists of the 1960s, Monk pioneered the use of multi-media in performance, and she continues to experiment with new technologies and materials to create powerful images in her work. Inspired by cultures where performance is considered a spiritual discipline with healing and transformative power, she has sought to re-establish the unity that underlies music, theater, and dance. Collected here for the first time, Monk's various writings and the record of her remarkable performances show her to be an artist with a far-ranging and consistent vision. Whether presenting epics like Quarry (1975) and her more recent Atlas (1991), small music theater pieces like The Plateau Series (1978) and Facing North (1990), or solo vocal recitals, Monk remains firmly situated in the bardic tradition. Her forms may be wholly contemporary, but her images, her voices, and her themes resonate with the power of myth and legend. "Monk's vision is about wholeness and continuity, in art and in life... She makes us aware of the submerged connections between islands of difference."-from the Introduction From Library Journal Those who have followed the remarkable career of Meredith Monk for the past 25 years will be surprised to learn that this is the first complete book in English published about this multitalented artist. The welcome compilation brings together significant artist's writings, interviews, reviews, program notes, articles, and essays. Village Voice dance critic Jowitt (New York Univ.) sifted through published and unpublished materials, much from Monk's personal collection, to select items for this anthology. Monk's many sides are reflected in these selections, which assess her work in monolog, dance, video, film, installation art, photography, and music. Monk concisely and eloquently describes her cutting-edge approach: "I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema." Informative and overdue, this title, which launches a new series, is a necessary purchase for theater collections in public and academic libraries.?Joan Stahl, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Deborah Jowitt has written about dance for the Village Voice since 1967. She is on the faculty of the Dance Department of New