Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance

Meredith Monk: Homemade Metaphors

Meredith Monk: Homemade Metaphors EREDITH MONK'S theater is a place of transmutation and transfiguration . Events occur, but their meanings shift and are wiped away. Time and space become shattered and rearranged. Objects shrink or become luminous and powerful. Inside the magically real universes that Monk creates within the borders of theatrical space, simple and familiar things accumulate into dense, resonant, fabulous images. Individual lives and actions and prosaic objects become symbols for larger systems through the spectator's act of meditation and integration. Although she is often considered a choreographer in the tradition of the Judson Dance Theater, Monk the visionary and technician is more the child of Artaud than of Cage. An alchemist in the theater, she carefully plans and measures the elements of her spectacles both to present stories — albeit plotless , mysterious tales — and to acknowledge lovingly the theatricality of their presentation. Even though some of her techniques have analogues in early theater forms of both the East and the West, Monk's work is radical — partly because it contravenes the direction of modern theater; partly because it unabashedly exploits the theatricalism of its techniques, whether they be traditional or new. These contradictions lend the work a primitive, enigmatic quality: Monk's performances describe a reality of essences, rather than surfaces . She might declare, along with Artaud, We believe in all the threats of the invisible ... We are totally dedicated to unearthing certain secrets . .. [We seek] to present to the eye certain tableaux , certain indestructible, undeniable images that will speak directly to Meredith Monk as the Child in Quarry. Photograph © Johan Elbers, 1976. M the mind . . . There will not be a single theatricalgesture that will not carry behind it all the fatality of life and the mysterious encounters of dreams.1 A fanciful program note from 1969 states that: MEREDITH MONK was born in lima Peru/grew up in the West riding horses/is Inca Jewish/lived in a red house A COMMERCIAL: SHEWILL PRESENT A NEW WORK: "TOUR: DEDICATED TO DINOSAURS" ON MARCH 4 IN THE ROTUNDA OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Started dancing lessons at the age of three because she could not skip/did Hippy Love Dance at Varney's Roaring 20's Topless Club in California/has brown hair.2 As an autobiographical statement, it is the real Monk, even though some of its details may not be accurate — if one refers to rational, external verities. But in its stream-of-consciousness mixture of the most mundane details with unabashedly romantic figments, it is revealing of the texture of her work and life. Monk was born in Peru, where her mother, a singer, was on tour. But she grew up in Connecticut, the descendant of European Jews — including her great-grandfather, who was a cantor, and her grandfather, who founded the Harlem School of Music. Monk learned to sing before she could talk, read music before she knew how to read words. At three she began to dance, first studying eurhythmies (a system of teaching musical rhythm through body movement, invented by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze) and then ballet. As a child she also studied music theory and harmony; at sixteen, she began composing. Monk's first dance performances were with a New York group doing Israeli folk dances.3 In college at Sarah Lawrence, Monk majored in performing arts, studying with Judith Dunn and Bessie Schonberg among others. In 1964, she moved to Manhattan where, besides choreographing and dancing her own works, she performed in Happenings, off-Broadway plays, and other dance works. Monk's own work since 1964 can be divided roughly into five categories: early dance works; large works for specific sites; chamber works; collaborations ; music recitals. She has also made several films and recordings. By the time Monk arrived in New York City, the dance world had seen the first stage of a creative rebellion and the choreographic revolutionaries of the 150 TERPSICHORE IN SNEAKERS first Judson generation were consolidating their discoveries and advances. Monk's work, in a sense, reacted against the aesthetic of that revolution, while taking advantage of an ambiance that fostered formal experiments. Her program did not involve rinsing dance of spectacle and theatricality — as had, for instance, Yvonne Rainer's — but, rather, exploring the very theatricality of expressive performance. Break (1964), for example, used the wings and back entrances of the theater to mask parts of the soloist's body...