Meredith Monk: Between the Cracks

MEREDITH MONK: BETWEEN THE CRACKS1 JANICE MOWERY BEYOND THE NOTES: AN INTRODUCTION EREDITH MONK DEFIES classification. Her body of work spans half a century and has a unique and consistent style, a language all her own.2 Monk’s creative process is meticulous, intriguing, and unconventional . Her music seems deceptively simple, but is very complex and rigorously worked out. She describes herself “as a composer of music and of images and then movement.”3 An inventor, Monk works “as a mosaicist, building [her] pieces out of modules of music, movement, character, light, image, text, and object.”4 Her music “exists between the bar lines and beyond the notes.”5 She works “between the cracks” on the microscopic scale “‘where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema,’”6 and she works “between the cracks” on the macroscopic scale, between and beyond forms as well as between different mediums. But, what does it mean to M 80 Perspectives of New Music work “between the cracks”? How does the voice dance? How does music exist “between the bar lines and beyond the notes”? These descriptive phrases are found in abundance in reviews, interviews, and articles about Meredith Monk, but they are of little help in understanding Monk and her music unless we can gain some kind of meaning from them. A journey through writings by and about Monk, as well as a brief expedition through Part I of her opera, Atlas, will provide an opportunity to explore what it means to be between the cracks, to hear how the voice dances, to discover the music beyond the notes, and to investigate Monk’s creative process with the intention of gaining a deeper understanding of and appreciation for her music. Monk does not consider herself a storyteller; her works are not narrative. What she communicates is not a story, but something beyond a story. Monk communicates something of substance with meaning, mood, images, landscape, and an underlying sense of vitality.7 Her opera, Atlas, inspired by the life of Alexandra DavidN éel, goes beyond the telling of a life story, taking us on a spiritual journey. As with Monk’s other works, there is an interconnectedness: aural, visual, visceral, physical, and spiritual. Consider the visual perception of the body and the aural perception of the voice. Body and voice, however, are not separate. We cannot ignore the body. Gestures and the movement of the body can be as much a part of the performance as is the voice.8 The interconnected body and voice reflect, or perhaps symbolize, the interconnection and interdependence between all other elements, resulting in that “something of substance,” the underlying sense of vitality. Monk’s performers move beyond simply performing toward becoming the work itself. In Atlas, Monk sets up this transformation using costume, movement, and sound in “Agricultural Community (Thresher),” for example. At first we see only the explorers passing through what appears to be a field dotted with piles of straw. The piles of straw come to life, as they are actually on the backs of the performers (first seen seated and hunched over). The ensemble is wearing capes of straw. The motions of their dance are as though they are harvesting, and their song is open, inviting, and swishes with a pastoral quality. They are both harvesting and being harvested, and they share their daily routine with the travelers, inviting them into their community . The aural, visual, visceral, physical, and spiritual elements all work together in this scene conveying both substance and underlying vitality, a sense of the great depth of the complex humanity of this intimate, vital community. Even in Monk’s solo performances she communicates universal human energy. She expresses her spirituality, life philosophy, and her unique sense of history in her solo pieces, as Meredith Monk: Between the Cracks 81 well as in her works for larger ensembles.9 Communicating something beyond mere emotion is her intent, her primary motivation. She communicates human energy, embracing and including those emotions we cannot name, those deep, forgotten memories at the core of each of us.10 Monk projects humanness not only in sound,11 but in all aspects...