The Living Theatre & Gamelan Son of Lion
Present
LIVING GAMELAN: Music about Theater & Politics
December 2, 3 & 4, 2007
The Living Theatre, 21 Clinton Street, New York, NY
Free Workshops, Open Rehearsals, Concert PerformanceFunded in part through Meet The Composer's MetLife Creative Connections program and through public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.
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Recorded live at the Living Theatre, December 4, 2007Mac users - can hold down Option and click link to save
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Gamelan Son of Lion
Barbara Benary, David Demnitz, Daniel Goode, Patrick Grant, Lisa Karrer, Jody Kruskal, Laura Liben, John Morton, David Simons
1. Balaganjur
Traditional - arranged by David Simons
David Simons and Lisa Karrer, soloists2. Operation Iraqi Freedom (excerpts)
David Demnitz
a. Specious Associations
b. Hearts and Mines
Text: Mark Twain, The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date) - 1901
Featuring Lisa Karrer, vocalist
3. Artaud & the Balinese Theatre
Music: Patrick Grant from The Philosopher's Stone
Text: Antonin Artaud from On the Balinese Theatre - 1931
Featuring Martin Reckhaus, recitation4. Toy Symphony
Music: Daniel Goode
Text: Daniel Goode, Robert Frost
Featuring Kamala Sankaram, soprano5. Piece for Peace in the Middle East (excerpt)
Laura Liben=====================================================================
Program NotesThe Balaganjur entrance music is based on the traditional Balinese and has been arranged by David Simons. Often performed as a marching gamelan, this version features Simons and Lisa Karrer as soloists.
Excerpts from David Demnitz's four movement work, Operation Iraqi Freedom is being offered on tonight's program:
Specious Associations examines the period right after September 11, 2001. The movement juxtaposes two ensembles, a trio of western instruments and the gamelan orchestra. The trio's tone moves from reflection to resolve and the gamelan, representing the good will of the world community, offers support to the trio. The trio accepts the offer, but the relationship between the ensembles becomes more complicated as the trio at times takes advantage of the support being offered, but at times acts at cross purposes with the gamelan.
Hearts and Mines is the last movement of the Operation Iraqi Freedom and examines United States imperialism from the point of view of Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain). Clemens, who regarded Julia Ward Howe's lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic as "the most beautiful and the most sublime battle hymn the world has ever known" was nevertheless moved to write rather different lyrics which he called The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date) during the Spanish American War, during the US occupation of the Philippines. This presentation features Lisa Karrer as the vocalist.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date)
Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) 1901
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps --
His night is marching on.
I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!"
We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;*
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!
In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom -- and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich --
Our god is marching on.* NOTE: In Manila the Government has placed a certain industry under the protection of our flag. (M.T.)
Artaud & the Balinese Theatre - The Theatre and Its Double, the theatrical manifesto of the French Surrealist Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), has been an integral element in the formulation of the Living Theatre's aesthetic and creative process. In the early 20th century, when Indonesian performing ensembles passed through the various World Expos held in Paris, Artaud was particularly struck by the integration of all the theatrical elements: sound, movement, costume and light. For him it was a 'theatre of gesture' and one that ritualized and mythologized everyday life. For him this was a breath of fresh air held in contrast to the text driven drama of his day. One of the many scenarios he wrote for the stage as a result of this inspiration was The Philosopher's Stone (La Pierre Philosophale) 1931. It tells a tale, in sound and movement, of the sadistic Dr. Pale and his love-starved wife Isabelle. In one of the doctor's experiments he creates Harlequin, a grotesque, hunchbacked little man who requests that the doctor remove the Philosopher's Stone from his body. In lonely Isabelle's eyes, Harlequin is a beautiful upright youth with whom she has an affair behind the doctor's back and, after many a scene of Grand Guignol proportion, hurriedly produces a child with him that, to all of their surprise, is an exact miniature of Dr. Pale. Whew! In 2003 I was commissioned by the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble to create and perform with them a tone poem based following the narrative of this scenario. Tonight is presented a suite of three of the movements from that piece upon which the venerable actor/director Martin Reckhaus will recite text from Artaud's essay On the Balinese Theatre. - Patrick Grant, 12/07 NYC
From On the Balinese Theatre
Antonin Artaud 1931
…All true feeling is in reality untranslatable. To express it is to betray it. But to translate it is to dissimulate it.
…The theatre must make itself the equal of life --- not an individual life, that individual aspect of life in which characters triumph, but the sort of liberated life which sweeps away human individuality and in which man is only a reflection.
…There is an absolute in these constructed perspectives, a real physical absolute in which the Eastern peoples are capable of envisioning - it is in the loftiness and thoughtful boldness of their goals that these conceptions differ from our European conceptions of theatre, even more than in the strange perfection of their performances
…It happens that this (Balinese) mannerism, this excessively hieratic style, with its rolling alphabet, its shrieks of splitting stones, noises of branches, noises of the cutting and rolling of wood, compose a sort of animated material murmur in the air, in space, a visual as well as audible whispering. And after an instant the magic identification is made: We know it is we who are speaking.
…The true purpose of the theatre is to create Myths, to express life in its immense, universal aspects, and from that life to extract images in which we find pleasure in discovering ourselves.
Toy Symphony is a meditation in sound and text about war and “wars,” perpetrated by political and religious forces here and elsewhere. It is also an exhortation asking people: which war is this? One strand of thought leads to the most unromantic word of all: capitalism, the self-declared victor of a long political and economic war. A succinct phrase in opposition came from Pope John Paul II, who is also a doctrinal enemy of the rights of women. But why toys? Toy musical instruments played by grown-up musicians calls attention to the vulnerability of people in the face of the powerful armed by military or economic force. The use of toys deflates those forces at least symbolically through a playful, but serious irony. And also liberates us a bit to unwind and come together. There is also a powerful musical reason to combine toys with sophisticated musical instruments: toys extend the range of “real” musical instruments into the expressive realm of noise, the unruly and the transgressive. The setting of Robert Frost’s famous poem, Fire and Ice, is a reflection on endings of all things, but in today’s world, a reminder that we do not really know the fate of the earth. [DG]
Text for TOY SYMPHONY
Daniel Goode/Robert FrostBeware... Beware... Beware… Beware…
He said
Who said?
Pope said
Pope John Paul said, he said
Beware of savage, wild capitalism.Let's take a tip from-Whom?
From Pope… [etc.]
He said it, Karol Wojtyla, he said it… [etc.] that one
Who is against the rights of womenBeware… [etc.]
"In time of war" da-dum, da-dum
"This time of war"
Which war is this?
Iraq or terror?
Terror, Iraq?
The undeclared war?
Or, the endless war?Terror is a human feeling
No war can win
The War on Drugs
The War on Sin
No war can win.
The war against the secular war against Christ-T-T-T-T-T-T
Terror is a human feeling
No war can win.
Some say (Frost says) the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice -ce-ce-ce-ce-ce-ce-ce-ce-ce
Piece for Peace in the Middle East (excerpt) by Laura Liben, is written for Indonesian angklung (bamboo rattles). It is based on traditional Middle Eastern rhythms that are combined in untraditional ways.=====================================================================
Leadership support for Meet The Composer's MetLife Creative Connections program is generously provided by MetLife Foundation. Additional support is provided by Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, ASCAP, ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, Jerome Foundation, mediaThe foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation and Virgil Thomson Foundation, Ltd.Additional support for these events come through public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.
Our deepest thanks to Judith Malina & Hanon Reznikov at the Living Theatre for bringing us in to do these performances and workshops. Thanks to all the technical help from Evan True & the crew at the LT. Thanks to Bill Hellermann at the Calendar for New Music. And thanks to all of our dear friends and colleagues who have all contributed to these events.
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Photos: Robert Schaffer
The toys for Toy Symphony
Composers Patrick Grant, Daniel Goode, David Demnitz and Barbara Benary
Living Theatre co-founder and guest speaker Judith Malina with Patrick Grant
David Simons and Lisa Karrer perform Balaganjur
Performing David Demnitz' Specious Associations
Actor/director Martin Reckhaus performs Artaud & the Balinese Theater with the gamelan
Daniel Goode conducts Toy Symphony
Soprano soloist Kamala Sankaram
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BiosDavid Demnitz studied composition and sculpture at the Mason Gross School of Arts, Rutgers University. (MFA 1983). He has received a Mary Cary Flagler Charitable Trust grant for production of his CD Gamelan As A Second Language (GSOL2, 1999) Of late, Demnitz has focused on examining Orientalism, and his recent works are attempts to write accessible, serious music which explores current political relationships between people and cultures in quite literal terms. Examples of this more recent work and the entire four movements of Operation Iraqi Freedom can be heard at www.myspace.com/daviddemnitz.
Daniel Goode joined Gamelan Son of Lion as a performer and composer in the early '70's. As clarinetist and composer he has appeared world-wide as a composer in all media. His most recent project is the Flexible Orchestra, a reform of the Western orchestra inspired to some degree by his experience with the gamelan as a musical, social, and cultural phenomenon. His work can be found at http://www.frogpeak.org
Patrick Grant writes music for concert, stage and visual media. He has created scores for theatrical visionaries The Living Theatre, Gerald Thomas and Robert Wilson. He has just scored a documentary on Swami Satchidananda and continues his musical collaborations with the painter Kehinde Wiley. His production company www.strangemusic.com celebrates its 10th anniversary next year.
Barbara Benary is a co-founder of Gamelan Son of Lion, and builder of a great many of the keyboard instruments we use. She has a doctorate in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan U. and composes chamber music and opera in addition to many pieces for the gamelan. http://www.ladentown.org/bbenary
Lisa Karrer is a director, composer, vocalist, performance and video artist, and collaborates with numerous musicians, artists and ensembles. She has produced CDs for Music For Homemade Instruments and Gamelan Son of Lion, and with co-composer David Simons recorded and released their chamber opera The Birth of George on Harvestworks' TELLUS label. In spring '07 Lisa premiered Schismism: Fractured America, a multi-arts solo performance, at The Flea Theater in NYC. Lisa continues to develop multi-arts projects such as Mary's SITE, a video with accompanying composition for live chamber ensemble, based on the animated sculpture of visual artist Mary Ziegler. http://www.simons-karrer.com
Jody Kruskal is a composer, performer, instrument builder and teacher, living in Brooklyn, N.Y. He first wrote for gamelan in 1988 with his theatre score for The Ring Dove (Ralph Lee and the Mettawee River Company). He joined Gamelan Son Of Lion in 1989 and sang the title role in Barbara Benary's Karna in 1994. Jody is the musical director, founder and builder of the Public Works Orchestra, performing numerous dance commissions including works by Laura Gates (Dance Center of Cambridge) and Elise Long (Spoke The Hub). He is composer for Shakespeare On The Sound company (Rowatan, CT) and wrote gamelan influenced scores for their Midsummernight's Dream and The Tempest productions. Jody also writes fiddle tunes for traditional dancing, and plays Anglo concertina with the contra bands Grand Picnic and Squeeqology.
Laura Liben has composed for and played with Gamelan Son Of Lion since the early 80's and has toured with them to Indonesia and Estonia. She is also a musician with The Actor's Shakespeare Company, located in Jersey City. Her piece She Herself Alone written for toy piano and psaltery was performed recently by Margaret Leng Tan at music festivals in France, Australia and Woodstock, NY. Laura is a long time music teacher and Teaching Artist with children in both public and private school settings.
John Morton has presented his music throughout the United States, and has participated in collaborations at The Kitchen, The Playwright's Center, and at the Kohler Arts/Industry Program. His CD, OUTLIER-NEW MUSIC FOR MUSIC BOXES was the subject of a feature and live performance on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday (Music Box Man), and he received NYFA Fellowships in 2002 and 2006. His music box sound installation (The Diary of Emily Trevor) was commissioned by the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, and he recently completed a new sound installation, SonicHudson, for the Piermont (NY) Library, commissioned by the New York State Fund for Music.
Martin Reckhaus is a director and actor who divides his time between the cities of New York and Naples, Italy. He is a cofounder of the Loretta Auditorium (The Loretta Trilogy), and a member of the actors' collective, Alchemical Theater (whose name is taken from Artaud's Theatre and Its Double), founded by Living Theatre actors Mary Krapf and Carlo Altomare in NYC in the early 1980s. The Living Theatre presented Reckhaus' and Elena Jandova's production of Walter Hasenclever's expressionist play Humanity which received critical acclaim in the New York Times. Currently, he is designing a new cycle of plays called New Science.Kamala Sankaram is a New York composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist. Ms. Sankaram has performed with and premiered works by a range of artists including Dan Zanes, Phil Kline, Eve Beglarian, Jed Distler, and Nicholas Brooke, among others. Upcoming, she'll be collaborating with the Wooster Group on a performance of Cavalli's opera, La Didone. She is featured as a singer on Around the World in a Daze, available from Starkland Records, and as a sitar player on The Sick Generation, from Hymen Records. As a composer, Kamala Sankaram has written music for concert, theater, and film. Recently, she composed the score for the off-Broadway production, Agatha, at the Trilogy Theater, and for Signe Baumane's award-winning short Dentist. Kamala's voice can be heard in the animated series Golden Age, featured on Comedy Central's Motherload. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Ms. Sankaram is a doctoral candidate in political psychology at the New School for Social Research.
David Simons is a composer and performer specializing in percussion, Theremin, electronics, and World Music. Recordings of his works include the CDs Prismatic Hearing (Tzadik); the opera The Birth of George (Tellus/Harvestworks) w/Lisa Karrer ; Kebyar Leyak and Cool it Wayang for Gamelan Son of Lion, and on albums by God is My Co-Pilot, Stockhausen, Shelley Hirsch, Music for Homemade Instruments, and many others. Simons' composition Odentity for the Harry Partch instruments was premiered this year. http://www.simons-karrer.com
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Gamelan Son of Lion is a new music repertory ensemble based in downtown New York City specializing in contemporary pieces written for the instruments of the Javanese gamelan. The ensemble was begun by a core group of composers: Barbara Benary, Daniel Goode, and Philip Corner. Its repertoire centers on new compositions by these and other American composers, both ensemble members and commissioned guests. The repertoire represents a variety of contemporary music styles and has performed continuously since 1976. More than a hundred pieces have been premiered by the ensemble since its inception. www.gamelan.org/sonoflionFor six decades The Living Theatre has brought contemporary music of all genres to the public through its theater productions and related events such as concerts into the communities in which they have worked and have impacted literally countless people with exposure to new forms of art. "We are hoping to become a focal point for the expression of dissent and the innovation of peace. We also look forward to presenting the work of like-minded artists. And we will continue to bring our theatre into the streets at critical moments." www.livingtheatre.org
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www.strangemusic.com
