printable versionLively Arts presents spiritually inspired Songs of Ascension
Acclaimed composer and choreographer Meredith Monk, center, drew inspiration for Songs of Ascension from the processionals of Buddhist stupas, Moses' journey up Mount Sinai and other religious rituals and symbols.
Meredith Monk's Songs of Ascension, which was commissioned for Stanford Lively Arts and has its world premiere at 8 p.m. Saturday in Memorial Auditorium, has otherworldly origins.
A Zen abbot told the acclaimed composer and choreographer about the "Songs of Ascent"—the songs the Jews purportedly sang in biblical times on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and while climbing Mount Zion.
Then Monk got a call from artist Ann Hamilton, who, like Monk, is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, asking her to perform at the opening of her newly created 60-foot tower with two spiral staircases.
Monk described Hamilton's tower as a sort of architectural vocal cord, and pondered its inner spirals, which mimicked the double helix of DNA.
By that time, Monk was already thinking vertically: She had noticed that several psalms and religious symbols from other cultures—Olympus, Valhalla and the Aztec pyramids—all assumed that "going up is going to God, or the spirit," she said.
Performed by Monk, a vocal ensemble and guest string quartet, Songs of Ascension fuses music, theater, movement and art. With Hamilton's video images of the tower incorporated into the production, Monk draws inspiration from the processionals of Buddhist stupas, Moses' journey up Mount Sinai, and Tawaf, the Islamic ritual at the Kaaba in Mecca.
For Monk, Songs of Ascension was an opportunity to combine her spiritual practice of meditation with her creative work to create a contemplative space for the audience.
Her desire to create such a space also reflects her feeling that there is too much in today's world telling people how to think: "We're just constantly bombarded with information," she said. "The culture is telling you what you should be thinking, what you should be feeling. We're taught to trust that more than our real experience."
Jenny Bilfield, artistic and executive director of Lively Arts (and a composer herself), attended a Minneapolis preview of Songs of Ascension last June. "Monk doesn't utilize words as a narrative anchor, but rather employs the full range of the voice—overtones, high range for men, low range for women, and everything in between—to create the sensation of voices rising," Bilfield said.
Bilfield called Monk "quite a remarkable artist—an important person representing the way creative people see themselves synthesizing forms, challenging notions of delineation."
The work was commissioned for Stanford Lively Arts by Van and Eddi Van Auken in honor of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, Transatlantic Arts Consortium (a partnership between the California Institute of the Arts, Dartington Plus and Idyllwild Arts) and the Walker Arts Center of Minneapolis.
Tickets for the world premiere of Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton's Songs of Ascension range from $22 to $60. Half-price tickets are available for people age 18 and younger and Stanford students. Discounts are also available for groups and non-Stanford students. For tickets and more information, call 725-2787 or go to http://livelyarts.stanford.edu.