Concert - Body and Mind

For centuries artists have explored, through their own individualized lenses, what it means to be human; through sound, color and texture, they express the intricacies of body and mind, weaving together a personal tapestry of art unique to their own lived experiences and opinions.

Through creative expression, both artist and observer can learn more about themselves each other. How do we relate to each other and open the doors of connection? How do we highlight our differences but still experience togetherness? How do we express joy or pain, handle judgement from outside and within, and approach our challenges and so-called limits, whether put upon us by ourselves or society?

In this concert, The Playground will perform works that explore the unique vulnerabilities that come with being human; from the mind and its tendencies to the body and its limits, and how the two intersect and can bring us closer together and to ourselves.

Program

Crossing the Rubicon (2018) by Leaha Maria Villarreal

1. The Die is Cast
2. Reflections
3. One's Bearing Shapes One's Fate

Performed by:
Leah Podzimek, Soprano
Robyn Julyan, Violin
David Short, Cello
Sonya Yeager-Meeks, Flute
Deborah Marshall, Clarinet
Joshua Sawicki, Piano
Luke Wachter, Percussion

Based on the fragments of Heraclitus, "Crossing the Rubicon" details a character that is at a turning point in life. Using her background in writing and poetry, librettist Adara Meyers chose different pieces of Heraclitus' work that surround the notion of a crossroads. In turn, composer Leaha Maria Villareal developed musical ideas that represent this character. While it is an abstract way to construct a piece of classical music, Villareal's explanation is nothing if not enthusiastic: "the character literally stands at this crossroads, deciding how to move forward with their life. I'm excited to see how the audience interprets the words."

Text by Adara Meyers
1. The Die is Cast

Alea iacta est.
2. Reflections

We all know what I'm told, what I can't do
I'm told what I can't do
You don't see how I manage my pain
You don't see my concessions
So many, for so many people
Or men
I am competent
Putting them at ease
But no more
I declare what I can do

3. One's Bearing Shapes One's Fate

I've got child bearing hips
I don't got child bearing hips
I bear the weight of the world
The weight of the world is unbearable
Bear down for birth
Lives are mine
Why?
Why call it "giving birth"?
There's no giving it to somebody else
One's child, one's fate
One's bearing, one's fate
Lives are mine
Ever wanted?
Never needed?
I am a life
but one just can't be sure about women

"Aphasia" (2009) by Mark Applebaum

Performed by Conrad Kehn

Aphasia, conceived originally for singer and two-channel tape, was commissioned by the GRM, Paris and composed for virtuoso singer Nicholas Isherwood. The tape, an idiosyncratic explosion of warped and mangled sounds, is made up exclusively of vocal samples—all sung by Isherwood and subsequently transformed digitally. Against the backdrop of this audio narrative, the singer performs an elaborate set of hand gestures, an assiduously choreographed sign language of sorts. Each gesture is fastidiously synchronized to the tape in tight rhythmic coordination.

The eccentricity of the hand gestures is perhaps upstaged only by the observation that the singer, however extraordinary, produces no sound in concert. (In fact, the role of the "singer" may be taken by any performer of suitably enthusiastic inclination and conviction.) In that regard Aphasia may be the first piece in the vocal canon that can be performed even when the singer has laryngitis.

Only The Words Themselves Mean What They Say (2010-11) by Kate Soper

1. Go Away
2. Head, Heart
3. Getting to Know Your Body

Performed by:
Leah Podzimek, Soprano
Sonya Yeager-Meeks, Flutes

"I wrote Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say out of a determination to test my limits as a vocalist and performer and an itch to make something out of Lydia Davis' fabulously quirky, slyly profound texts. Writing as a composer/performer opens up the pre-compositional realm to lots of useful improvisatory tangents and fresh timbral discoveries, and working closely with flutist Erin Lesser led to many happy surprises that eventually made their way into the final score. Lydia Davis' words suggested an unhinged virtuosity and idiosyncratic, multi-layered musical reading that took me from screwball comedy to paired musical gymnastics: the flute becomes a kind of Iron Man suit for the voice, amplifying it to new planes of expressivity, intensity, and insanity as the two players struggle, with a single addled brain, to navigate the treacherous labyrinth of simple logic." - Kate Soper

Texts by Lydia David

I. Go Away

When he says, "Go away and don't come back," you are hurt by the words even though you know he does not mean what the words say, or rather you think he probably means "Go away" because he is so angry at you he does not want you anywhere near him right now, but you are quite sure he does not want you to stay away, he must want you to come back, either soon or later, depending on how quickly he may grow less angry during the time you are away, how he may remember other less angry feelings he often has for you that may soften his anger now. But though he does mean "Go away", he does not mean it as much as he means the anger that the words have in them, as he also means the anger in the words "don't come back." He mans all the anger meant by someone who says such words and means what the words say, that you should not come back, ever, or rather he means most of the anger meant by such a person, for if he meant all the anger he would also mean what the words themselves say, that you should not come back, ever. But, being angry, if he were merely to say, "I'm very angry at you," you would not be as hurt as you are, or you would not be hurt at all, even though the degree of anger, if it could be measured, might be exactly the same. Or perhaps the degree of anger could not be the same. Or perhaps it could be the same but the anger would have to be of a different kind, a kind that could be shared as a problem, whereas this kind can be told only in these words he does not mean. So it is not the anger in these words that hurts you, but the fact that he chooses to say words to you that mean you should never come back, even though he does not mean what the words say, even though only the words themselves mean what they say.

II. Head, Heart

Heart weeps.
Head tries to help heart.
Head tells heart how it is, again.

You will lose the ones you love.
They will all go.
But even the earth will go, someday.

Heart feels better, then.
But the words of Head do not remain long in the ears of Heart.

Heart is so new to this.
I want them back, says Heart.
Head is all Heart has.
Help, Head. Help Heart.

III. Getting to Know Your Body

If your eyeballs move, this means that you're thinking, or about to start thinking. If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeballs still.

I'm waiting for your crip cadence (2024) by MG Bernard and Nathan Hall

Performed by:
Nathan Hall, Conductor/Vocals
MG Bernard, Vocals/Machines
Joshua Sawicki, Piano
David Short, Cello
Deborah Marshall, Bass Clarinet
Conrad Kehn, Electronics

I'm Waiting for Your Crip Cadence is the collaborative composition and performance by Denver-based artists MG Bernard (she/her) and Nathan Hall (he/him). With help from a quartet of chamber musicians, Bernard and Hall create and recreate an auditory and visual experience of what it feels like to exist in a chronically sick bodymind. Elements of the piece explore ideas of crip time (the disabled experience of non-linear time) and queer experiences through music, and the relationship between doctor and "patient". Together, the artists and performers reveal invisible aspects of Bernard's life to the public through a visceral and juxtaposing display of how she is bound to the medical industrial complex, dependent on uncomfortable relationships of care, and indentured to pain.

Body Maps (2007) by Paola Prestini

Performed by:
Leah Podzimek, Soprano
David Short, Cello

This personal portrait explores the plurality of certain human experiences, highlighting our strengths and vulnerabilities, particularly those of our own bodies. The work is a collaboration with visual artist Erika Harrsch, and maps the body by the songs, myths, and traditions that define us. The stories are based on several found tales: a blind canary (depicted with an eye in its beak): "A canary, blinded by lightning, had to be taught to bathe and where to find its seed and water. Not being able to recognize daylight, the bird would often start singing at midnight." (Margaret G. Zackowitz's writings on Patrick Lambert, an amateur bird medic). Feet, tired from journeys: "We stand, feet to earth, with our hands liberated, enabling us to look at the sky." (Inspired by writings in National Geographic). The arm, translated into a metaphoric butterfly wing, allows the imagination to escape: "The body in death. The wingspan if this butterfly is petite. 3/8 of an inch. The violence that can be done to 3/8 of an inch." (Excerpted from writings by Neela Vaswani). And the human hand, with its power to touch and heal, holds within its palm a visual synthesis of the human experience.

The piece explores the range of both the cello and the human voice (itself a body part), structurally balanced by both a choir of voices and a choir of cellos. Though essentially a duo, the layering and counterpoint represent the complexity and scope of the theme.

Showing the body as both structure and dwelling place for consciousness—which transforms, mutates, adapts, and recognizes itself as vulnerable. The foundation of the apparent body is life itself, converted into a cartographic surface on which scars, experiences, and stories are traced.

Time: Doors open at 7:00 pm, concert starts at 7:30 pm.

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