Blogs The Green Room

Kyle Abraham: Prepare a Face

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Falteringly, haltingly, Kyle Abraham begins to move. His body, his being, seems to reject itself, a pained, primordial entity adjusting to the uncomfortable feeling of his own skin. Blending deep-seated emotion with controlled technique, Abraham pulls from his own experiences and personal history to tap into a relatable, intimate agony – the clash of the [...]

Photo: Ian Douglas

Photo: Ian Douglas

Falteringly, haltingly, Kyle Abraham begins to move. His body, his being, seems to reject itself, a pained, primordial entity adjusting to the uncomfortable feeling of his own skin. Blending deep-seated emotion with controlled technique, Abraham pulls from his own experiences and personal history to tap into a relatable, intimate agony – the clash of the individual with rigid social exhortations. In Live! The Realest MC, he takes inspiration from the Pinocchio fable to explore the concept of being “real,” within the context of masculine expectations, heteronormativity, and the performance of identity in hip-hop. Upright and sparkling in gold Abraham provides a marked contrast to the cool black tracksuits of his company members. As he begins to walk, he welcomes us to follow him on this journey.

Now in its third year, the Walker Art Center’s SpeakEasy program regularly invites audience members to participate in open post-performance conversations facilitated by Walker visual arts tour guides and local members of the performing arts community. In conjunction with this weekend’s performances by Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, we offer this pre-performance blog highlighting a few themes connected to the work. We hope that you will join us after the show on Saturday, March 16, in the Walker’s McGuire Theater Balcony Bar for a discussion led by choreographer Blake Nellis and Walker tour guide/choreographer Ray Terrill.

Placing the work

Drawing from his conservatory training and youth immersed in the emerging hip-hop culture of Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, Kyle Abraham creates interdisciplinary work that “delve[s] into identity in relation to a personal history.” This weaving of diverse media and material is manifest in works such as Pavement, which incorporates opera, the early writings of W.E.B. Du Bois, and the 1991 film Boyz N The Hood, as well as Live! The Realest MC, with its mixture of dance, projections, and monologues.

Speaking of his interest in the work of visual artist and Walker Art Center regular Kara Walker, Abraham reflected upon identity and influences: “I am inspired by how she is able to create such provocative situational environments in her work with a willingness to evoke anger, laughter, and a whole swelling of emotions…her work deals with historic references, representation, and stereotypical content that make me reflect on my position in life…and more so in this country, as a gay black American man who grew up in an urban environment marginalized by race, poverty and sexual orientation.”

Abraham’s background provides fodder for Live! The Realest MC, a piece that both confronts issues of hypermasculinity and comically questions what being “real” in hip-hop may be. Yet behind this humor and orbiting this piece are a variety of rigid expectations and potentially cruel consequences, what Amy Villarejo has termed the “terror of the normative.” The story of Live! The Realest MC began to develop in the early solo piece Inventing Pookie Jenkins, but took on a greater significance in the context of recent suicides connected with bullying and homophobia. Abraham explained, “I began to think about a time in my life when I prayed that I could go unnoticed. Hoping that if I get my voice to sound like the other male students around me, I wouldn’t be found out. I just wanted to be a robot… a puppet…”

Being “real” in this sense becomes convoluted, not simply the assertion of some genuine selfhood, but, a “yardstick” that measures one’s relationship to a variety of notions of authenticity. To “be real” morphs into an imperative to fall in line and the individual must decide how to respond.

Photo: Cherylynn Tsushima

Photo: Cherylynn Tsushima

Public Performance

Although brought into dramatic relief in relation to expectations that one resists, the individual in society is continuously engaged with the demand “to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” (T.S. Eliot). Embedded within myriad sets of relationships, the self is developed and performed through quotidian practices and in contrast or kinship with others. In this regard, for Joanne Finkelstein, the “controlled body” becomes a “passport to sociability.” If one knows social codes, and can successfully adhere to them, doors may open, even if merely for a performance that comes at a great personal price.

When does hip-hop become intertwined with identity or a lifestyle and how is this relationship performed? When is it personal, taking a set of concepts and practices into one’s own definition of self, and when is it public, portraying a role to be understood by others or assuming qualities and practices from demeanor, to speech or consumption? Abraham’s work pulls meaningfully from specific roots, yet the aforementioned questions apply to any range of accepted or desired roles. Where does the “real self” end and the “performed self” begin? Given that one is born and lives in situ and in relation to others, is the notion of such divisions simply an illusion?

When asked in an interview for New York’s Amsterdam News how race may factor into his dance life, Abraham replied, “It is inevitable that the work of any choreographer will come from a place of their individual journey. My personal story is growing up as a middle-class, Black, gay man from a spiritual family upbringing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Whether I chose to create a work about my life experiences in a literal fashion [or not], the work is inevitably a derivative of all that I am.”

While “placing” Abraham’s work may mean providing a context for it in terms of histories, norms, and social forces that have shaped his experiences, the work is not limited by these parameters. Speaking of the larger relationship between audience and art, Abraham broadened the scope: “the same great thing can be said about dance as it can about the visual arts… I want my work to have an individual effect. It’s not imperative that people walk away seeing or feeling the same thing. Art, in all forms to me, is about evoking something…either with in yourself or within those who stumble upon your vision.”

Accumulating Paradox: Cynthia Hopkins and This Clement World

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To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, playwright/performer Rachel Jendrzejewski shares her perspective on Thursday night’s performance by [...]

The Arctic landscape as seen from the deck of the Noorderlicht, the ship that carried Cynthia Hopkins and the Cape Farewell expedition of 2010. Photo: Cape Farewell

The Arctic landscape as seen from the deck of the Noorderlicht, the ship that carried Cynthia Hopkins and the Cape Farewell expedition of 2010. Photo: Cape Farewell

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, playwright/performer Rachel Jendrzejewski shares her perspective on Thursday night’s performance by Cynthia Hopkins. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

Somewhere in the middle of This Clement World, we meet a German physicist that Cynthia Hopkins encountered while on an expedition to the Arctic. Or rather, I should say, we meet Hopkins’ impression of the man, as she’s reenacting a lecture that she didn’t manage to capture on film. Every year, this physicist heads to the Arctic before the ice forms, allows his boat to be frozen into place, and stays there until the ice thaws. This endeavor is known as “overwintering,” the same term used to describe things like migration and hibernation, and probably, living in Minnesota, things related to waiting out the harsh conditions of winter. Hopkins-as-physicist tells stories about living in the Arctic, navigating nature, and coming to terms with mortality, declaring choice insights along the way like, “There’s no such thing as human rights in the Arctic!” We are tiny specks in the cosmos, after all, mortal animals just fighting to survive. The audience gazes at breathtaking footage of vast seas, white ice masses, documentation collected from Hopkins’ travels, landscapes that make us feel even more insignificant in the grand scheme of things. “This is not bad, it’s not even sad,” she insists. “In fact, it’s beautiful. It’s life.”

It is beautiful; and yet this character probably will be one of the first to remind us that, despite our small, finite position within the vastness of nature, we humans are rapidly taking nature down—except, no, that’s not quite right—we’re rapidly taking ourselves down. Nature will always be around in some form, but its prolonged hospitality for human life is another story. Later in her piece, Hopkins (now playing an alien from outer space disguised as a man with a moustache) observes that human beings have come to the end of innocence; like toddlers learning about cause and effect, we can see the dire consequences of our actions. There’s no going back to blissful ignorance. Not that we have ever been terribly blissful in ignorance; another character played by Hopkins, the ghost of a murdered Native American woman, points to certain haunting notions of “progress” (“Now we can kill each other so many ways”).

Hopkins presents our current global climate situation, including the role of consumer-driven “progress,” in plain didactic terms: Here is what’s happening. We have choices to make. Now is the time to make them. Sacrifice will be required. Yet amidst the firm clarity of her mission, she inhabits a world of paradox that, at least for me, packs the real punch. Documentary film and autobiographical accounts are layered into a concert structure of utterly transcendent music (including a stellar live band), along with a multimedia environment and array of eclectic fictional and real characters. Observations of crisis exist in meditative suspension, urgency amidst timelessness. Sometimes there’s a palpable tension between these worlds; engulfing sections of music accompanied by those equally captivating Arctic images seem to swell up in visceral response to all the scientific research telling us things most of us have heard but feel helpless to control. Apart from the video, Hopkins herself is the main focus on stage, often in the form of and/or accompanied by life-sized projected videos of herself. Her image seems to be everywhere and vulnerable, but also nowhere, mediated by technology or hidden behind personae (surely the fact that she’s appearing on the heels of Cindy Sherman is no coincidence). Witness versus participation; inevitability versus choice. It accumulates very quickly into something much larger than one human.

“She’s trying to tell a story she do not know how to tell,” remarks Hopkins-as-alien toward the end. And maybe this accumulation of paradox, the impossibility of fathoming the world on our own, becomes the point. Perhaps the real story of climate change begins as we find each other in shared space to look, and listen, and respond, together.

A Letter to Cynthia Hopkins

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Dear Cynthia, How are you doing? I’m really looking forward to seeing your performance this weekend. Did you know that the first show I saw in conjunction with the Walker was Accidental Nostalgia? It was part of Out There in 2005 and I was 14. I participated in theater at school, but Accidental Nostalgia broadened [...]

dear cynthia photo

Dear Cynthia,

How are you doing? I’m really looking forward to seeing your performance this weekend. Did you know that the first show I saw in conjunction with the Walker was Accidental Nostalgia? It was part of Out There in 2005 and I was 14. I participated in theater at school, but Accidental Nostalgia broadened my sense of what theater could be. It was a bit different from Ann of Green Gables or The Hobbit: a Musical, and I loved it for that reason. Over the past seven years I saw your other two shows at the Walker and grew alongside the performances. I started noticing different themes, and I related to the themes in different ways.

During this past year, I have been fascinated with memory. In an age when computers can remember so much information, I wonder how we as humans relate to memory and forgetting. I have been asking the question, “If computers can remember so well, is it really forgetting that makes us human?” I see the idea of forgetting as being very loose and more in line with “abstraction”–that we are able to meld our different past experiences in order to figure out what to do in the future. I see this as a different way of looking at forgetting and it makes me wonder if forgetting is a bad thing at all.

Your past work has dealt a lot with memory and forgetting, and I imagine This Clement World is also looking at these ideas. Even though I think that forgetting may be what makes us human, it does come with some consequences. Last December marked the 150th anniversary of the mass hangings of Dakota people in Mankato. Living in Minnesota, we heard a lot about this tragic event, but it has not always been so. It was written out of the majority of histories. This writing out or erasing of certain events could be considered a kind of forgetting.

Cynthia, I wonder what you think about this idea of forgetting and climate change? Are we currently writing it out of our memory?

This also makes me think about dealing with traumatic events on a large scale. How do we cope? How do our future generations cope? What I’m wondering specifically is when is the line crossed between the importance of remembering history and forgiving past generations? This is an interesting line, the line between remembering and forgetting. They each have their benefits and disadvantages.

I look forward to seeing your work through the lens of my experiences. I hope to relate it to my interest in memory and look forward to seeing other ideas you bring to the table on this and other subjects.

Thanks for your work and making me think.

Sincerely,

Nicola

LISTENING MIX // Cynthia Hopkins

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LISTENING MIX provides a musical preview for artists visiting the Walker. Combining their work with sounds from a variety of contextual sources, LISTENING MIX can be experienced before or after a performance. Before Cynthia Hopkins brings This Clement World to the Walker this weekend (March 7-9), get to know her musical side with this week’s [...]

Cynthia Hopkins, Photo: Pavel Antonov

Cynthia Hopkins. Photo: Pavel Antonov

LISTENING MIX provides a musical preview for artists visiting the Walker. Combining their work with sounds from a variety of contextual sources, LISTENING MIX can be experienced before or after a performance.

Before Cynthia Hopkins brings This Clement World to the Walker this weekend (March 7-9), get to know her musical side with this week’s LISTENING MIX.

Remaining traditional with instruments and song forms from folk and country, Cynthia Hopkins makes a unique statement with her soulful yet vulnerably honest storytelling. Her courageous voice drives emotional melodies to create a deeply American sound. Down to earth and amazingly original, Hopkins sings of addiction, aliens, climate change, and more. Within this music mix, I’ve included sounds which are more classic and others which are more experimental. For example, there are some oldies such as Woody Guthrie and Jean Ritchie and freak-folk newbies such as Larkin Grimm and Joanna Newsom.

LISTENING MIX // Cynthia Hopkins by Listening Mix on Mixcloud

Cynthia Hopkins / Interlude / 0:0
Woody Guthrie / This Land is Your Land / 2:37
Jean Ritchie / Careless Love / 5:20
Cynthia Hopkins / Like This / 7:45
Ella Jenkins / I’m Gonna Sing / 12:50
Josephine Foster / I Could Bring You Jewels / 14:12
Marissa Nadler / Loner / 16:19
Cynthia Hopkins / For Your Music / 19:24
Marissa Nadler / Loner / 23:16
Ô Paon / La Cible / 28:05
Cynthia Hopkins / For Those in Peril on the Sea / 32:04
Igor Stravinsky / Les 5 doigts pour piano solo / 35:18
Larkin Grimm / Blond and Golden Johns / 36:18
Cynthia Hopkins / The Future / 39:26
Joanna Newsom / On A Good Day / 43:09
Jessie Mae Hemphill / Standing In My Doorway Crying / 44:56
Gloria Deluxe / Come On / 49:39

 

For more, read about the Minnesota musicians supporting Hopkins in her performances and a recent Walker interview between Hopkins and meteorologist Paul Douglas.

Cynthia Hopkins: The Luxury of Inaction, the Ease of Destruction

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In an interview with Tom Michael for Walker magazine, Cynthia Hopkins described becoming aware of her own human fragility while on a trip to the Arctic with Cape Farewell, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness around climate change to spur cultural shifts leading to sustainable practices. Without markers of scale, distance became difficult to gauge, [...]

In an interview with Tom Michael for Walker magazine, Cynthia Hopkins described becoming aware of her own human fragility while on a trip to the Arctic with Cape Farewell, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness around climate change to spur cultural shifts leading to sustainable practices. Without markers of scale, distance became difficult to gauge, perspective shifting along with realizations of both the enormity of the landscape and, in comparison, the frail nature of one’s own life. In preparation for this weekend’s performances of This Clement World–and Saturday’s post-performance audience discussion, SpeakEasy, which takes place in the Balcony Bar–here’s a look at key issues at play in Hopkins’ work.

Cynthia Hopkins, This Clement World. Photo: Pavel Antonov

Cynthia Hopkins, This Clement World. Photo: Pavel Antonov

Where is she coming from? 

Part documentary, part folk music-infused theater, part call to action, This Clement World addresses the global issue of climate change through a relatable, human-scaled lens. Hopkins frames her multidisciplinary performances as storytelling based in alchemy. Starting from a point of disturbance, she forces confrontations with personal demons and sociopolitical crises, plumbing this darkness to emerge bearing a message of hope, through theatrical productions that educate, stimulate, and entertain.

Through shifts from personal to global, Hopkins reveals a portrait of the human being in the world – unique and beautiful, but also responsible to the future, capable of change, and accountable for decisions. Describing influences in an interview for Bomb magazine from Bertolt Brecht to Tadeusz Kantor and Laurie Anderson, Hopkins situates herself in a lineage of theater practitioners who not only comment on social issues, but also self-reflexively draw attention to the act and allure of theatre-making itself. This Clement World entices through music, storytelling, and beautiful footage of the Arctic, but Hopkins also pushes back – directly addressing the audience about climate change and even questioning her own metaphors.

Where are we going? 

Hopkins draws from her own struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction to develop addiction as a metaphor for reliance on fossil fuels – a dependence on that which is causing our own slow, progressive destruction. This comparison brings forth both the challenge of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and the possibility of self (and social) transformation through actively, diligently developing different practices. Her metaphor also manages to add a physical, bodily component to the climate issue. As a population becomes accustomed to the ease provided by fossil fuels, the more that is consumed, the more normalized the behavior becomes, the more we want, the more we need. Addressing climate change in this regard means assessing our own personal addictions and culpability. It means changing daily habits, overhauling systems, and perhaps altering other fundamental patterns – a consumer economy based on disposable commodities and the disproportionate over-use of resources by a relatively small proportion of the global population.

Underlying Hopkins’ metaphor is the luxury of inaction. Focusing on various other immediate crises, climate change may appear as a distant issue, a problem that we can get to later on. In A Conversation on Climate Change, the Walker brought together specialists to focus on the science surrounding this issue and the ramifications that are already being observed – changing weather patterns, melting Artic ice, the increase in instances of extreme weather. As Hopkins notes, this is a pressing issue and a significant time to be alive, for what is or is not done now will have considerable consequences for future generations.

Photo: Ian Douglas

Photo: Ian Douglas

Who is speaking? 

In This Clement World Hopkins both relates her own experiences and becomes a variety of characters – an alien, a visitor from the future, and the ghost of a Native American woman murdered during the Sand Creek massacre in 1864. Each character provides a distinct perspective, a means of interfacing with the audience and another tactic for getting the point across that something needs to be done. In particular, although the ghost does not speak, her emergence brings forth one thread of a long history of environmental destruction intertwined with violence, where those with the least power endure the most. Turning from the grand suffering of the plant and future generations to the immediacy of violence, climate change might be viewed as the crest of a building wave poised to engulf individuals and whole communities. As this issue is addressed – or not – how will victims be represented, how might their stories be told, and by whom? In a conversation with Walker web editor Paul Schmelzer and meteorologist Paul Douglas, Hopkins highlights other aspects elaborated by this character – the interdependence of humans and the natural world, as well as the impermanence of a way of life, the inevitable change, by necessity or choice, of unsustainable practices.

What’s at stake? 

According to a UN report, the world population is set to increase from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050. This anticipated change means that if only small actions are taken, such work could easily be off-set by population growth alone. The concern goes beyond necessities such as water, energy, food, or land, to include the perpetuation of consumption habits. Isolating just one piece of this issue is telling – the United States currently houses less than 5% of the global population, but uses roughly a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources. At A Conversation on Climate Change, the immediacy of the issue and the need to do something now was brought to the fore, leading to the question of how to tackle such a massive personal – personal action, or perhaps a movement? More realistically, it was proposed that the incentive to change will likely come not from rhetoric of doing right by future generations, but rather profits to be made from solutions to impending, global crises.

Tackling climate change will likely lead to an array of debates around initiating and managing large-scale practices, yet the urgency to do something remains potent, for in this instance, both action and inaction have consequences.

See you this weekend…

Cynthia Hopkins, The Clement World, March 7-9, 2013

Join us after the show on Saturday, March 9, in the McGuire Theater’s Balcony Bar for a SpeakEasy — an informal post-performance audience discussion. This week’s conversation will be facilitated by Walker Art Center tour guide Barbara Davey and choreographer Jennifer Arave.

The conversation is on-going…

Please share thoughts, comments, and questions below!

Meet the Minnesota Artists of This Clement World

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Cynthia Hopkins has invited a slew of talented Twin Cities musicians to perform beside her in next week’s Midwest debut of This Clement World. This part-music, part-theater performance investigates expansive issues of climate change and more personal struggles with addiction. Pulled from various music scenes of the Twin Cities, Cynthia brings these twelve musicians to [...]

Cynthia Hopkins in This Clement World, Photo: Ian Douglas

Cynthia Hopkins in This Clement World. Photo: Ian Douglas

Cynthia Hopkins has invited a slew of talented Twin Cities musicians to perform beside her in next week’s Midwest debut of This Clement World. This part-music, part-theater performance investigates expansive issues of climate change and more personal struggles with addiction. Pulled from various music scenes of the Twin Cities, Cynthia brings these twelve musicians to support her in the performances here at the Walker. We wanted to know more about this eclectic group of performers, so we asked them to tell us their most rewarding or memorable musical experiences and answer a more casual question related to their everyday lives. Check out their answers below (and learn such things as what they listen to, where they can be found on a Saturday night, and what they ate for breakfast)!

Crystal Myslajek, Piano

My most memorable performance is actually a toss-up between two performances with my band, Brute Heart. It would be either performing Brute Heart’s original score to the silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, in August 2012 in the Walker’s Open Field for the Music & Movies series, or playing in First Avenue’s Mainroom for Minneapolis-based, Polica’s record-release show. For me, both experiences reflect the vibrant fabric of music and art in Minneapolis. The Walker’s movies in the park have been a longstanding summer staple for many a Minneapolitan and I had always wanted to play First Avenue having grown up in the Twin Cities going to many shows there since I was a teenager.

What have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been listening to a lot of ambient music. Some of the artists on my playlist are Grouper, Stars of the Lid, and Tim Hecker. I’ve also been thoroughly enjoying the newest release of local music duo Father You See Queen and the lovely guitar and vocals of Chicago-based singer-songwriter Julie Byrne.

Crystal Myslajeck (left) of Brute Heart, Photo: Sophia Hantzes

Crystal Myslajeck (left) of Brute Heart. Photo: Sophia Hantzes

Larry Zimmerman, Trombone

I’ll never forget the first time I performed with my quintet, Chestnut Brass Company, at the Jeju Seaside Arts Center in South Korea–an amphitheater full of (mostly) Koreans clapping in unison to our arrangements of George Gershwin & Irving Berlin songs. What a rush, and now we’re looking forward to our sixth trip to Jeju this August!

What is your favorite thing about the Twin Cities?
There’s something really special about a bright sunny day in February, with fresh snow on the ground and in the trees. A lot of places you won’t ever see that, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Larry Zimmerman (second from left) of Chestnut Brass Company, Photo: abelcentral.blogspot.com

Larry Zimmerman (second from left) of Chestnut Brass Company. Photo: abelcentral.blogspot.com

Erica Burton, Viola

One of my most memorable experiences as a musician came when I played in-studio at the Hideaway for Lazerbeak of Doomtree. It was the very first time I had played music outside of the classical genre, and it was thrilling.

What have you been listening to lately?
Lately I’ve been listening to Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” The Pharcyde’s “Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde,” and John Mark Nelson’s “Waiting and Waiting.”

Erica Burton, Photo : facebook.com/Laurels.String.Quartet

Erica Burton.  Photo: facebook.com/Laurels.String.Quartet

Zack Lozier, Trumpet

Last summer, as a member of Doc Severinsen’s latest orchestra, I arrived at a rehearsal to find a chart labelled, “Duet/Split-Lead.” I later performed “Well Get It,” a Dorsey classic, trading note for note, right next to Doc at the front of the stage! I sure hope it’s in the show when we go back out in April.

What did you eat for breakfast?
This morning I had corn grits with cotija cheese, a hard fried egg, dark roast coffee, and an orange juice.

Zack Lozier (right), Photo : Andrea Canter

Zack Lozier. Photo : Andrea Canter

Jonathan Sunde, Tenor Vocals

My band, The Daredevil Christopher Wright, got an opportunity to perform for 50 or so people on a rooftop balcony in Paris overlooking La Basilique du Sacre Coeur. The opening act was a two-person, one-act performance of a Bertolt Brecht play. It was absolutely as bizarre and romantic as it sounds.

What have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been really excited about Nina Simone. I picked up her Pastel Blues record and am really enjoying. She’s amazing.

Jonathan Sunde (middle) of The Daredevil Christopher Wright, Photo: thedaredevilchristopherwright.com

Jonathan Sunde (middle) of The Daredevil Christopher Wright. Photo: thedaredevilchristopherwright.com

Karen Townsend, Alto Vocals

Last summer I played accordion for Open Eye Figure Theatre’ s Driveway Tour. It was incredibly rewarding to be part of these hilarious puppet shows that bring communities together for highly entertaining, free, outdoor, family friendly (yes, adults LOVE it too) entertainment in various backyards and neighborhoods. After performing 40 shows last summer in the Twin Cities and Tulsa, I still laughed at every joke and thrived off of the responses of the children and adults in the audience.

Which animal do you identify most with?
The snake. I was born in the year of the snake. I am about to give birth to my first child who will also be born in the year of the snake. I love encouraging people to shed what is no longer serving them. I like to visualize snakes and their movements when thinking about how to introduce concepts and ideas that people may not be open to if I just come right out and say it. I’m always looking to slither my way in, past the armor, to the most kind and compassionate part of the human heart.

Karen Townsend, Photo: karentownsend.bandcamp.com

Karen Townsend. Photo: karentownsend.bandcamp.com

Leslie Ball, Alto Vocals

My most memorable experience as a performer — over so many decades! — would have to be a three-way tie:
1) in the ’70s:  the adventure of weeks spent entertaining our troops on a U.S.O. tour in Panama, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and  several other Caribbean islands
2) in the ’80s: the privilege of singing  for Stephen Sondheim and others in a private presentation of a new work
3) in the ’90s: the honor of being a backup singer for Gene Pitney at his Carnegie Hall concert

Where can you be found on a Saturday night?
At the stunning Southern Theater hosting BALLS Cabaret, the longest-running weekly midnight cabaret in human history (now in our 22nd year). BALLS is a greenhouse for artists of any discipline or experience, nurturing creative community in a sober environment every Saturday night at midnight. BALLS was cited in the New York Times as a “must-see” while in the Twin Cities.

Leslie Ball, Photo: circleofgracemn.org

Leslie Ball. Photo: circleofgracemn.org

Parker Genne (Soprano Vocals)

My most memorable performing experience was busking on the streets in Edinburgh for fringe before my evening shows. There was this magnificent afternoon where I was singing away with my ukulele and this older Scottish gentleman who I noticed singing along to every tune I sang, accepted my offer to join me, and we busked together and made a killing for two hours. We had crowds as we belted our tunes, the best being “Down by the Riverside.”

What is your favorite thing about the Twin Cities?
The people, my family and friends that I love so much, and the lakes we swim in, sail on, and run across in the winter.

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Also performing with Cynthia Hopkins are local musicians: Jesse Edgington (bass vocals), Jake Endres (bass vocals), Jason Sunde (tenor vocals), and Lauren Asheim (soprano vocals).

Cynthia Hopkins performs the Walker Commision of This Clement World March 7-9, 2013.

Flying Neutrinos and Picket Lines: Shara Worden at SPCO

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To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Tuesday’s concert by Shara Worden. Agree or disagree? [...]

Photo by Murat Eyuboglu

Photo by Murat Eyuboglu

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Tuesday’s concert by Shara Worden. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

Shara Worden has a voice that doesn’t seem like it should emanate from the body it’s housed in. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: her body can’t contain her voice. Worden and drummer Brian Wolfe played an hour long My Brightest Diamond set for a crowd gathered at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s music room, a crowd that expected to hear yMusic along with Worden. Due to the ongoing labor dispute between the SPCO and the orchestra’s management, however, yMusic was unable to perform because of union solidarity or union obstructionism, depending on your point of view.

Dressed in a white tuxedo coat, sequined black pants, and oversized bow tie, Worden cut an amalgamated figure: shades of Annie Lennox, Brian Setzer, Pee Wee Herman, and Stop Making Sense all were visible. There were so many different feels and characters to the songs, often played on different instruments (ranging from mbira to autoharp to ukulele), that it verged on performative, yet superficial, pastiche.  The best moments for me were when she was more personal than persona, such as in “I Have Never Loved Someone,” an intimate love song to her two-year old son played delicately on the SPCO’s organ.

shara2

Photo by Denny Renshaw

Beyond the songs, though, the “off-stage story,” the locked-out SPCO musicians  and their effect on the concert tonight, gave the evening an element of cognitive dissonance for me. “We Added It Up,” a song ostensibly about relationship opposites told through the zero-charge neutrino particle, rang a little hollow. Having her channel Cardew or Rzewski would’ve rang equally hollow, though. In the end, the concert was a somewhat rare instance when the labor involved in music-making is revealed, the financial and negotiated realities that get people to the stage placed front and center. Worden’s music often invoked transcendence, whether it be through her music, her words, or her other-worldly voice, effortlessly flicking to notes far above the staff, but tonight, that transcendent quality brought the issues of the musical world all the more sharply into focus.

LISTENING MIX // Sarah Kirkland Snider / Shara Worden / yMusic

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LISTENING MIX provides a musical preview for the musicians visiting the Walker. Combining their music with sounds from a variety of contextual sources, LISTENING MIX can be experienced before or after a performance.  Musician Shara Worden (of band My Brightest Diamond) is the lead vocalist for composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s song cycle Penelope. String ensemble yMusic will [...]

Shara Worden with Sarah Kirkland Snider and yMusic, Photo: sarahkirklandsnider.com

Shara Worden with Sarah Kirkland Snider. Photo: sarahkirklandsnider.com

LISTENING MIX provides a musical preview for the musicians visiting the Walker. Combining their music with sounds from a variety of contextual sources, LISTENING MIX can be experienced before or after a performance. 

Musician Shara Worden (of band My Brightest Diamond) is the lead vocalist for composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s song cycle Penelope. String ensemble yMusic will join Worden to perform the Walker co-commission and Midwest debut of Penelope (along with new My Brightest Diamond compositions) at St. Paul’s SPCO Center on February 26 and 27.
Worden, Kirkland Snider, and yMusic blend formal classical and pop influences into dynamic and rich, yet melodically approachable material. The following mix includes other musical groups which do just this, creating works that live on the fringe between “art” song and “pop” song. To bridge this gap, many of the works integrate strong narrative vocal melodies with modern string accompaniments.

LISTENING MIX // Sarah Kirkland Snider / Shara Worden / yMusic by Listening Mix on Mixcloud

Clogs / The Owl of Love (ft. Shara Worden) / 0:0

My Brightest Diamond / She Does Not Brave the War / 4:12

Brigitte Fontaine / Eros / 8:19

Clogs / Cocodrillo (feat. Shara Worden) / 11:01

Meredith Monk / Hocket / 12:53

Sarah Kirkland Snider / Nausicaa (feat. Shara Worden) 17:08

James Blake / Retrograde / 20:04

Antony & The Johnsons / Twilight / 23:53

yMusic / Skin & Bones (Shara Worden) / 27:36

Final Fantasy / took you two years to win my heart / 31:31

yMusic / A Whistle, A Tune, A Macaroon / 35:28

Sibylle Baier / I Lost Something In the Hills / 38:32

France Gall / Celui que j’aime / 41:59

My Brightest Diamond / If I Were Queen / 44:31

Joanna Newson / No Provenance / 47:07

Ólöf Arnalds / Surrender (feat. Björk) 53:34

Matteah Baim / The Whistler / 58:51

Shamans and Wizards: Glenn Kotche at the Walker

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To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Saturday’s concert by Glenn Kotche. Agree or disagree? [...]

Glenn Kotche. Photo: Ed Luna

Glenn Kotche. Photo: Ed Luna

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Saturday’s concert by Glenn Kotche. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

In his introduction to Saturday night’s performance by Glenn Kotche at the McGuire, Philip Bither used language of sonic exploration to describe what the audience was about to see. Though he was mainly discussing ILIMAQ, the “drum kit opera” by John Luther Adams and peformed by Kotche that comprised the evening’s second half, both parts of the evening featured explorations of sonic and physical landscapes.

The first half of the show was a long collaborative composition between Kotche and multi-instrumentalist wizard Martin Dosh. Encircled by a full studio mixer, piano, marimba, drum kit, and a number of other keyboards, Dosh created, transformed, and reversed intricate live loops that revolved around, between, and within what Kotche played. For his part, the Wilco drummer also had a conventional drumset, a marimba, xylophone (which was bowed as often as it was struck with mallets), and a pair of bass drums that were never struck, but used only as a resonating surface for spinning, vibrating robot toys. The two artists seemed to be winding their way through the geography of their creation in perpetual motion, at times solidifying and coalescing around an understated piano melody played by Dosh that somehow tied everything together. And as the piece wound down, ending as it began with found sound conversational recordings and bowed xylophone, the robots in the back kept spinning, a lovely metaphor for the 20+ minutes of music the audience experienced.

John Luther Adams has made much of his music about and amidst the landscapes of Alaska, where he has resided since 1978, and Ilimaq is his most recent work. Written for Kotche, the piece is divided into roughly three sections, with Kotche playing on three different setups: first, a side-turned bass drum; second, a greatly-expanded drum set with multiple tuned toms; and finally a vast array of cymbals and gongs, also arranged in orders of tuning. Over the course of nearly an hour, Kotche displayed his virtuosity on all of the instruments, as his sounds were delayed and channeled by sound engineer Jody Elff though the McGuire’s speakers, creating the sense of being surrounded by drums in the middle of an icy, barren landscape. (Nearly imperceptible flickering lights in the McGuire’s ceiling even gave the impression of a starry night sky.)

Glenn Kotche. Photo: Ed Luna

Glenn Kotche. Photo: Ed Luna

For Adams, the extra-musical aspect of the piece is the “spirit journey” (the English translation of the piece’s title) of an Iñupiat, or Alaskan Inuit, shaman. Without wanting to make too reductive a characterization of the piece as new age-y romanticization of shamanism, Native or otherwise, the piece’s repetitions work to relieve the listener of the musical conventions and associations of a bass drum, ride cymbal, or a gong. I likened it to saying a word over and over until it becomes more sonic than semantic. However, in this case, the repetitions went on a bit too long, leaving me to unfortunately put this in the category of “appreciating” this music for what Adams and Kotche were going for, rather than really enjoying it.

 

Performance, Dreaming Big, and Cat T-Shirts: An Interview with Shara Worden

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Musical and theatrical story-teller Shara Worden, of the band My Brightest Diamond (and many other collaborations), is a master of her voice and her stage presence. Combining acoustic with electronic sounds, classical chamber groups with rock musicians, and mythical fictions with autobiographical narratives, Worden is prolific as a songwriter, vocalist, performer, and producer. Since 2009, [...]

Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, photo: Dennis Stempher

Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Photo: Dennis Stempher

Musical and theatrical story-teller Shara Worden, of the band My Brightest Diamond (and many other collaborations), is a master of her voice and her stage presence. Combining acoustic with electronic sounds, classical chamber groups with rock musicians, and mythical fictions with autobiographical narratives, Worden is prolific as a songwriter, vocalist, performer, and producer. Since 2009, Worden has been lead vocalist for composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s song cycle Penelope. Joined by ensemble yMusic, Worden will perform the Walker co-commission and Midwest debut of Penelope (along with new My Brightest Diamond compositions) at St. Paul’s SPCO Center on February 26 and 27. We’ve invited her to share her thoughts on her approach to performance and her role in the piece Penelope, and to take part in our 8-Ball series, in which artists answer some of life’s most (and possibly least) pressing issues.

Last winter, I had the pleasure of experiencing your performance here in Minneapolis. What moved me most was your dynamic and intimate ability to engage. I remember being brought to a totally emotional, joyful, and cathartic place! How do you, as the performer, usually feel during your shows?

Well ideally, when you are singing or playing anything, you are in the present moment and experiencing the music in a way that has a new meaning for that day, and not going into auto-pilot mode. I could be wrong about this, and it would be interesting to me to do some scientific study on the relationship between intention or thought and how people perceive a performance, but my hypothesis is that if I’m checked out emotionally, then that communicates. If I’m present then I think that probably communicates too.

When I was at your show, you mentioned your love of another storyteller, Laurie Anderson. She just recently performed Dirtday! here at the Walker this fall. Has Laurie changed or influenced how you now approach your work?

I once heard Laurie say that you can’t sit around waiting for someone to give you the opportunity that you are dreaming up in your head. You have to create that opportunity for yourself. And one of the examples that she gave is when she was asked to do a concert for an expo in Japan and instead of just saying, “yeah, sure I’ll come do a concert,”  she sent them some 30 or so, different ideas for multimedia sculptures that could be created for the gardens. They didn’t use all of them, but they did use some of them. That story has left a deep impression on me, to dream big and then to be proactive rather than passive about your artistic life.

Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden, Photo: Daniel Boud

Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden. Photo: Daniel Boud

In your recent material, you’ve explored the idea that the world is held together by opposites and contradictions (in particles, for lovers, and for politicians). Has your thinking changed at all? Has this philosophy maintained a relevance during this last year?

I was one of those little kids who annoyed their parents asking philosophical questions about the universe that they didn’t have answers for, and I think I’m still that kid with lots of questions. I’ve been always been fascinated by physics, and also by human nature. I admit that I’m more into the metaphor of science than actually doing the math. I doubt the world is as dualistic as I proposed in “We Added It Up,” but I think when faced with a political dialogue that often seems so polarized, or with nations being at war with one another, the song was my way, even if singing “love binds the world” was somewhat childlike or overly simplified, of finding an alternative response to conflict in our world.

Drawing inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope seems to ask questions about identity, memory, and returning home. Can you relate to this version of Penelope in any way? How has it felt to move back to your home state of Michigan?

In the play, Penelope’s husband comes back after having been gone away to war for more than twenty years and he doesn’t remember her or who he is, or what happened to him, and slowly she begins to put the puzzle pieces together. While she recalls a deep love that they had for one another, she also can’t forget the lies that he told her, so their’s wasn’t an idealized relationship. However, as an actor/singer, what astounds me is the sheer force of will in these characters, to persevere in circumstances that feel like I personally might crumble under. I mean, because of his amnesia, it takes this man ten years to get back to his house. His longing for home is pretty remarkable I think, and her patience in caring for him, trying to help him heal is really astounding.

As it relates to me, I lived in nine different states by the time I was 18 years old, and Michigan was one of them, so I have never really identified with any location more than another.  However, I do have a really strong relationship to family and to “home”, wherever that is, as my nest and my lily pad, where I feel at rest. Detroit is really fascinating and complicated and in many ways feels like uncharted territory for me, because I lived about an hour west of Detroit when I was a teenager in a city with a different social environment. When I moved back to Michigan, I was so happy to discover that the radio stations are the same after 20 years! So more than anything, that does feel like coming “home” to a culture, at least a music culture, that had a big impact on me.

Nausicaa by Sarah Kirkland Snider (feat. Shara Worden and Signal)

8-BALL: SHARA WORDEN
How would you spend your ideal day?
Reading books to my son and writing songs in my studio at home.

What is your favorite scent and favorite sound?
gotta go with the mom answer on this one too, cause there is nothing better than that baby smell and then hearing them call your name.

Which animal do you identify most with?
Lately it’s been cats.  I’m obsessed with wearing huge cat tee shirts. I’m feeling fierce as a tiger.

If you could throw a dinner party for anyone in the world, who would you invite and what would you serve?
1st of all, I am a horrible cook, so I’d definitely get my neighbors- who are all amazing cooks- to cater us some fantastic Detroit garden delicacies.  I’d invite Dr. Lonnie Smith (because he is hilarious and a revolutionary and I wouldn’t have a hard time convincing him to play organ all night), Richard Serra (because, well, you said “anyone in the world”), the amazing singer Mary Margaret O’Hara as well as Meredith Monk because I think those two women have a lot to talk about, then I’d invite some writers like Muriel Barbery (who wrote one of my favorite books The Elegance of the Hedgehog) and David Mitchell (who wrote another one of my favorite books, Cloud Atlas).  Hopefully some of those people are extroverts, or we will all be staring at each other in thoughtful silence.

What artist turned your world upside-down as a teenager?
Prince–and I’m not just saying that cause this is Minneapolis. It is the truth!

Describe a recent dream you had in 15 words or less.
1 Can’t
2 Stop
3 Working
4 On
5 Music
6 Even
7 In
8 My
9 Dreams.
10 Dear
11 Muse,
12 Please
13 Let
14 Me
15 Sleep.

Which performers have been most meaningful or enchanting in your experience as an audience member?
Does YouTube count me being an experience as an audience member? Yes, I think so. Tom Waits, Bjork, puppet director Lake Simons, Paul Giamatti, Tim Fite.

Do you have any advice for young people?
Work hard. Believe in your ideas. Collaborate. Dream bigger. Work with what ya got.

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