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Jacob Cooper’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa
Wordless Music Meets Miller Theatre Festival
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
Saturday 12 September 2009
Jacob Cooper - Stabat Mater Dolorosa, for string quartet, two vocalists, and film (2009)
JACK Quartet
Mellissa Hughes, soprano
Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano
I’ve been carrying the program for this final performance in the WMMMT Festival around with me for several days, processing this searing work by Jacob Cooper. The JACK Quartet joined forces with soprano Mellissa Hughes and mezzo Abigail Nims, along with an unnamed projectionist (my guess it was Cooper, who created the powerful video).
Starting with the composer’s program notes:
“Stabat Mater Dolorosa is consistent with my recent work in that it uses an extremely slowed-down version of pre-existing music - in this case, the first movement of Pergolesi’s 1736 Stabat Mater - as a point of departure. Rather than depicting the grief of the Virgin Mary during Jesus’s death, as the original Stabat Mater text does, this piece is concerned with the grief of a contemporary mother. In Basra in March of 2008, Leila Hussein helplessly watched her husband murder their daughter Rand in a vicious “honor killing,” an attempt to cleanse the family’s reputation after Rand had fallen in love with a British soldier. The father openly admitted the killing and showed no remorse, yet the Iraqi police did not press charges against him. Leila Hussein, in an act of defiance exceedingly rare in honor killings, subsequently left her husband and publicly grieved over her daughter, expressing profound sorrow and speaking out against the general practice of honor killings. Much of the original Stabat Mater text describes how Mary’s grief was so great that, metaphorically, it caused her to die herself. In Hussein’s case, her public grieving caused her literal death as well: two months after first denouncing her daughter’s murder, she was shot and killed by anti-activists. Stabat Mater Dolorosa is an artistic hyper-magnification of a single instant: the last moment of the daughter’s life and the first of the mother’s death.”
Cooper boosted the meditative impact of the Pergolesi work by slowing tempos down to one-tenth the speed of the original, discarding vibrato, and limiting the dynamic range to sub-piano levels. A film played behind the musicians, at first an undefinable abstract swirl, ever so slowly resolving into the unblinking visage of a dying woman. The JACK Quartet and singers Hughes and Nims were astral, and the mood at the Miller was reverential - it is difficult to imagine a better way to encounter this important composition.
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Where Is Avery? 2009 Fall Season, NYC
New York just keeps getting better…
11 September
Preview - Monet’s Water Lilies
Museum of Modern Art
www.moma.org
Season Opening - New Chamber Ballet
City Center Studios
newchamberballet.com
12 September
Wordless Music Meets Miller Theatre Festival - JACK Quartet
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
15 September
Exhibition Opening & Artist Reception: A Tibetan Pilgrim: Photos by Tenzing Paljor
Tibet House
Event page
16 September
Screening - The Informant!
IMDb entry
Performance - Tiger Lilies
Caffe Vivaldi, 32 Jones Street
MySpace Music
19 September
Performance - Ute Lemper
Galapagos Art Space
Event page
24 September
Fall for Dance Festival
City Center
Event page
25 September
Dumbo Dance Festival
John Ryan Theater at WHITE WAVE, 25 Jay Street
Event page
26 September
New York Film Festival - Eccentricities of a Blond Girl
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
New York Gypsy Festival - Desert Caravan: Rhythm of Rajasthan
Symphony Space
Event page
27 September
New York Film Festival - Kanikosen
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
30 September
New York Film Festival - A Room and a Half
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
1 October
Fall for Dance Festival
City Center
Event page
3 October
WFMU Music Fest
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Event Page
4 October
New York Film Festival - Hadewijch
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
9 October
New York Film Festival - Around a Small Mountain
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
New York Film Festival - Mother
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
10 October
New York Film Festival - White Material
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
11 October
New York Film Festival - Life During Wartime
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
New York Film Festival - Bluebeard
Lincoln Center - Alice Tully Hall
Event page
17 October
Japan Society - inkBoat/Ame to Ame
Event page
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NYFF - First Cut
New York Film Festival
Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theater
25 Sept - 11 October
Once again, this finely curated festival makes it hard to do anything else for seventeen days running. Just trying to see the movies currently without U.S. distribution is a rewarding challenge.
Here’s my aspirational list:
36 Vues du Pic Saint-Loup / Around a Small Mountain
Jacques Rivette, 2009, France
Variety. review
La Barbe-Bleu / Bluebeard
Catherine Breillat, 2009, France
IMDb entry
Cheongchun’s Sipjaro / Crossroads of Youth
An Jong-hwa, 1934, Korea
Variety. article
Singularidades de Uma Rapariga Loura / Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl
Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/France, 2009
IMDb entry
Alle Anderen / Everyone Else
Maren Ade, 2009, Germany
IMDb entry
Ghost Town
Zhao Dayong, 2008, China
Distributor’s website
Hadewijch
Bruno Dumont, 2009, France
Toronto International Film Festival summary
Independencia
Raya Martin, 2009, Philippines/France/Germany/Netherlands
Toronto International Film Festival summary
Kanikosen
Sabu, 2009, Japan
Asian Media Wiki entry
Lebanon
Samuel Maoz, 2009, Israel
Reuters India article
Life During Wartime
Todd Solondz, 2009, USA
IMDb entry
Min Ye… (Tell Me Who You Are)
Souleymane Cissé, 2009, Mali/France
Screen Daily review
Maedo / Mother
Bong Joon-Ho, 2009, South Korea
IMDb entry
Ne Change Rien
Pedro Costa, 2009, France/Portugal
Filmmaker’s website
Poltory Komnaty Ili Sentimentalnoe Puteshestvie na Rodinu / A Room and a Half
Andrey Khrzhanovsky, 2009, Russia
IMDb entry
Sweetgrass
Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2009, USA
Previous post
Tatarak / Sweet Rush
Andrzej Wajda, 2009, Poland
IMDb entry
Morrer Como Um Homem / To Die Like a Man
João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009, Portugal
IMDb entry
Trash Humpers
Harmony Korine, 2009, USA
Toronto International Film Festival summary
White Material
Claire Denis, 2009, France
Toronto International Film Festival summary
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Talking to the Enemy
Malhotra D. Without conditions. Foreign Affairs. September/October 2009: 84-90
Free summary.
The current (and critically important) Climate Countdown issue of Foreign Affairs also contains a brief and thoughtful essay by Deepak Malhotra of Harvard Business School, on the contentious issue of discarding preconditions before negotiating with enemies.
One quote:
“Governments not only impose preconditions on others; they also impose preconditions on themselves. A government may want to wait until there is support among constituents for a peace process or insist on holding multilateral, as opposed to bilateral, talks. More commonly, even governments that are generally willing to negotiate often first set limits on their own behavior by refusing to talk to groups with ties to terrorists. The U.S. State Department, for example, publicly states that it will ‘make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals’.
“This position has the virtue of ideological purity but the vice of impracticality. When everyone at the table has clean hands, governments are unlikely to make progress on what is often the most important issue: the cessation of violence.”
No one is claiming this is easy stuff, but Malhotra puts forth his analysis so succinctly that no one can say they don’t have time to listen.
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Vegan-Friendly Toronto
Just got back from a week-long visit to University of Toronto and environs. A good city.
One caution - these are not pure vegan eateries, so purists will need to search onward. I’m not even a vegetarian yet!
Fresh
326 Bloor Street West (and other locations)
freshrestaurants.ca
Sampled: Blue Thrill, Deluxe Burger w/Sweet Fries, Thai Burger, Ayurvedic Bowl, Middle Eastern Plate, Bean Burrito, Fudge Cake, Blueberry Pie
fressen
478 Queen Street West
www.fressen.com
Sampled: Tabouli, Beet Salad, Jicima Salad, Skinny Linguine, Chocolate Terrine
Magic Oven
6 Wellesley Street West (and other locations)
www.magicoven.com
Rice Bar
319 Augusta Avenue
www.ricebar.ca
Sampled: Surfer’s Supper w/Tofu
Siddhartha Pure Vegetarian Cuisine
1411 Gerrard Street East
Toronto Life listing
Sampled: Bhel Poori, Masala Dosa
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William Bartram on Cherokee Dances
William Bartram
Travels and Other Writings
Library of America; 1996
William Bartram (1739-1823), artist, naturalist, “philosophical pilgrim”, traveled through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas in the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, describing the landscape, flora, fauna, and people of the region.
What a man - free of religious and racial bigotry, modestly courageous (he shows us there is such a thing), ever sensitive to beauty, kindness, and nobility, and desiring above all to live in peaceable harmony with all earthly creatures. He fights ravenous alligators bent on consuming him, meditates on the peaceful nature of the rattlesnake, and engages Muscogulges (Creeks and Seminoles), Chactaws, and Cherokees in civil discourse and remembers them with clear-eyed respect:
“The males of the Cherokees, Muscogulges, Siminoles, Chicasaws, Chactaws, and confederate tribes of the Creeks, are tall, erect, and moderately robust; their limbs well shaped, so as generally to form a perfect human figure; their features regular, and countenance open, dignified and placid; yet the forehead and brow so formed, as to strike you instantly with heroism and bravery; the eye rather small, yet active and full of fire; the iris always black, and the nose commonly inclining to the aquiline.
Their countenance and actions exhibit an air of magnanimity, superiority and independence.
Their complexion, of a reddish brown or copper colour; their hair long, lank, coarse, and black as a raven, and reflecting the like lustre at different exposures to the light.
The women of the Cherokees, are tall, slender, erect and of a delicate frame; their features formed with perfect symmetry, their countenance cheerful and friendly, and they move with a becoming grace and dignity.”
So many descriptions and stories. But for the purposes of this blog, two extended passages on dance may prove useful:
“This prologue being at an end, the musicians began, both vocal and instrumental; when presently a company of girls, hand in hand, dressed in clean white robes and ornamented with beads, bracelets and a profusion of gay ribbands, entering the door, immediately began to sing their responses in a gentle, low, and sweet voice, and formed themselves in a semicircular file or line, in two ranks, back to back, facing the spectators and musicians, moving slowly round and round. This continued about a quarter of an hour, when we were surprised by a sudden very loud and shrill whoop, uttered at once by a company of young fellows, who came in briskly after one another, with rackets or hurls in one hand. These champions likewise were well dressed, painted, and ornamented with silver bracelets, gorgets and wampum, neatly ornamented with moccasins and high waving plumes in their diadems: they immediately formed themselves in a semicircular rank also, in front of the girls, when these changed their order, and formed a single rank parallel to the men, raising their voices in responses to the tunes of the young champions, the semicircles continually moving round. There was something singular and diverting in their step and motions, and I imagine not to be learned to exactness but with great attention and perseverance. The step, if it can be so termed, was performed in the following manner; first, the motion began at one end of the semicircle, gently rising up and down upon their toes and heels alternately, when the first was up on tip-toe, the next began to raise the heel, and by the time the first rested again on the heel, the second was on tip toe, thus from one end of the rank to the other, so that some were always up and some down, alternately and regularly, without the least baulk or confusion; and they at the same time, and in the same motion, moved on obliquely or sideways, so that the circle performed a double or complex motion in its progression, and at stated times exhibited a grand or universal movement, instantly and unexpectedly to the spectators, by each rank turning to right and left, taking each others places: the movements were managed with inconceivable alertness and address, and accompanied with an instantaneous and universal elevation of the voice, and shrill short whoop.”
“Their music, vocal and instrumental, united, keeps exact time with the performers or dancers.
They have an endless variety of steps, but the most common, and that which I term the most civil, and indeed the most admired and practised among themselves, is a slow shuffling alternate step; both feet move forward one after the other, first the right foot foremost, and next the left, moving one after the other, in opposite circles, i.e., first a circle of young men, and within, a circle of young women, moving together opposite ways, the men with the course of the sun, and the females contrary to it; the men strke their arm with the open hand, and the girls clap hands, and raise their shrill sweet voices, answering an elevated shout of the men at stated times of termination of the stanzas; and the girls perform an interlude or chorus separately.”
Too bad there weren’t more like William Bartram. But perhaps we still have time to learn.
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Lee Grant Writes an Important Letter to the New York Times
Lee Grant is absolutely right. It’s time for some answers. Thanks to the New York Times for publishing.
August 10, 2009
Letter
A Famed West Sider Pleads for Her NeighborhoodTo the Editor:
Two years ago, I trekked down to City Hall to try, as an anguished Upper West Sider, to do something about my neighborhood’s stores’ being forced to close. In all cases, the landlord and real estate brokers were pushing the rents to absurdly high levels.
The Vietnamese owners of the market on Broadway between 87th and 88th Streets told me their rent had been raised astronomically. The market has been gone for two years now. The Vietnamese restaurant next to it closed at the same time.
Embassy Florist, on 91st Street, had its monthly rent raised to $28,000, up from $13,500. This mom-and-pop business had been in that spot for 87 years. How could the sale of flowers — or canned goods or lettuce — match these increases?
Morris Brothers, on Broadway for decades — they outfitted my kids for camp — closed. The fish market on Broadway between 89th and 90th, which did a brisk business, gone one day. And now Dock’s Oyster Bar, the popular seafood restaurant — neighbors showed up for their reservations, Dock’s was gone. Ate there Sunday, closed on Wednesday. Also gone are three neighborhood bookstores and the beloved Liberty House boutique.
In place of all these old friends are cellphone dealers, chain drugstores and, of course, banks. Wherever one looks is a walk-in bank.
Is the tax break landlords get for vacant properties higher than the rents they’re making? I want to know. Why else would they be demanding amounts they know their tenants cannot possibly pay? What is the role of the commercial real estate brokers? They make a commission on every turnover.
Two years ago, when I entered City Hall, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was on the porch. “Hello, Lee,” he said. I felt welcome. So why doesn’t he give us some answers to these landlord questions?
When I left the sad, underattended meeting in City Hall, I looked over the landscape. The two big streets facing City Hall each had two banks, two drugstores and nothing else.
Lee Grant
New York, Aug. 3, 2009The writer is the actress and filmmaker.
BTW - Subscribe! Newspapers are in crisis.
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Latin Choreographers Festival 2009 - Program
Theatro IATI
Instituto Arte Teatral Internacional
64 East 4th Street
New York, NY
23-26 July
The Latin Choreographers Festival has taken on precocious depth and character in its second year. Friday night’s performance was more or less filled to capacity. A good thing, too - New York desperately needs more innovative ventures like this, to showcase high-caliber work both by established choreographers and by artists that haven’t yet caught the attention of larger venues like the Joyce and BAM.
Curator Ursula Verduzco and guest dance-makers presented a varied evening program at Theatro IATI, an intimate, spartan East Village cultural landmark. The festival brings together ballet and modern dance, abstract and narrative forms. This event and Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet are two of the city’s best ways to experience ballet beyond the big institutions.
Verduzco, Magloire, along with John Zorn (The Stone) and the empresarios at Le Poisson Rouge, Drom, Galapagos and a small but growing number of venues are pulling off a major miracle - creating vital spaces for new classical art in a city that’s supposed to be on the decline. Good luck to them!
The festival ends on Sunday. Here is Friday night’s program:
Chrome Waters
Choreographer: Annabella Gonzalez/Annabella Gonzales Dance Theater (Mexico/NYC)
Music: Franz Schubert
Dancer: Lucia Campoy
After the Sunset
Choreographer: Yesid Lopez/Yesid & Company (Colombia/NYC)
Music: Arthur Rubinstein
Dancers: Angelica Burgos, Eric Rivera
Habibi HHaloua
Choreographer: Roman Baca/Exit 12 Dance Company (NYC)
Music: Yusuf Islam, Robert Schumann, Voices of TOW Platoon 25th Marines
Dancers: Lisa Fitzgerald, Lara Vilchez, Roman Baca
La Calma
Choreographer: Minou Lallemand/Onium Ballet Project (Colombia/NYC)
Music: Pepe Raphael & The Bottle Blondes
Dancers: Claudia MacPherson, Lesley Garrison
Vieja Ciudad de Hierro
Choreographer: Benjamin Briones/Benjamin Briones Ballet (Mexico/NYC)
Music: Rodrigo González, Maldita Vecindad
Dancers: Ursula Verduzco, Fredrick Davis, Heidi Green, Cesar Ortiz, Kate Loh, Erick Vlack
Yet Still Untitled…
Choreographer: Ted Thomas/Thomas/Ortiz Dance
Music: David Darling
Dancers: Jenna Blumenfield, Serge Desroches, Virginia Horne
Cain
Choreographer: Robert S. Olvera (Ecuador/Mexico)
Dancer: Robert S. Olvera
Shall We Dance
Choreographer: Yesid Lopez/Yesid & Company (Colombia/NYC)
Dancers: Marina Fabila, Yesid Lopez
Getting There
Choreographer: Ursula Verduzco (NYC)
Music: Inquisition Symphony
Dancers: Ursula Verduzco, Fredrick Davis
Mediterranea (Excerpt)
Choreographer: Pedro Ruiz (Cuba, NYC)
Music: Houria Aichi
Dancer: Ellenore Scott
Picking Up the Pieces
Choreographer: Jesus M. Pacheco (Memphis)
Music: John Mayer, Amos Lee
Dancers: Leigh Lajoy, Nicole Correa, Kara Bruzina
See the festival website for more details.
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Forward Looking Back
I love reading newspapers. Print and online. Big and small. One favorite is The Forward. (I started when they published the brilliant cartoonist Ben Katchor, and stayed hooked even after culture editor Alana Newhouse left to join Nextbook and oversee its development of the brilliant Tablet.)
Back to The Forward. One regular feature is worth the price of the paper - ForwardLookingBack, which reprints items from 100, 75, and 50 years ago. Much like Scientific American. Hoping the paper doesn’t mind an extended quote, here’s a great example from the current issue:
100 Years Ago in The Forward
“Jumping up onto a tabletop in the mess hall of Ellis Island, one of the immigrants yelled out: ‘No one could eat breakfast today. The food they give us here isn’t fit for pigs. We are treated here like wild animals, kept in cages and given rotting food to eat.’ The speaker, who recently had written a letter to the Forward regarding the poor conditions on Ellis Island, is one of those slated to be shipped back to Europe because he didn’t have the $25 now required to enter the United States. His speech made a deep impression on the rest of the immigrants, who decided to stop eating and start a hunger strike. The atmosphere frightened immigration officials, who must have thought that a revolution was in the works, so they sent guards into the mess hall with their revolvers drawn. Needless to say, this didn’t help the situation.”
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