We are bringing in two new performers, editing our material and filling out the skeletal structure that we developed last fall.
We are still fundraising with a final deadline set for February 1st.
If we raise $70 every day we will reach our minimum goal! All funds will be used to cover our performers’ fees.
(further notes from our process)
In the Q&A session after our last performance at BRIC, Anaïs Maviel
said that the choir allows her to work beyond herself and be involved in
a greater energy than she could otherwise engage. The epic scale of the
work we’ve laid out for ourselves in 2017 is as exhilarating as it is
humbling. “Epic” form is a telling of history that identifies a people;
integral to this classic form we work with the story of each
performer—thus we’re situated in the contradiction of a “currently”
created epic, as a collective vantage point for amity and clarity of
action, particularly with regard to the difficulties involved in
performing the greater good.
Here is an epic newsflash from NYC (from another era, and also from the libretto—
In1643, the Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues reported that 18 languages
(excluding Native American and West African languages) were spoken in
the 20 year-old New Amsterdam.
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OVERVIEW
Led by choreographer Daria Faïn and poet-architect Robert Kocik, The
Commons Choir collectively sets humanity’s troubles and highest
aspirations to song, movement, and spoken word. Their new project,
BROOKLYN REZOUND, is an investigative jazz musical composed by Darius
Jones that examines the experience of displacement and change in
polyglot Brooklyn as it represents the nation in its enduring
aspirations toward equity. The Commons Choir are currently
artists-in-residence at BRIC and BROOKLYN REZOUND will premiere at BRIC
House in April 2017.
Works by The Commons Choir take on the scale of epic town hall musicals.
Libretti are written from deep research both in the studio and on the
ground in local communities. In performance, they are enacted by 30
performers – a mix of professionals and community members who represent a
dozen nationalities, speaking over 10 languages and ranging in age from
twenties to seventies. Their medium is prosody, encompassing the
physical and musical aspect of language – tone, rhythm, pause, emphasis,
gesture, etc. Their sonic layering emits a primal full-bodied force
that vibrates throughout the audience.
The intention of the composition is to create a sonic membrane that will
connect linguistics and movement by developing musical textures and
soundscapes that will act as a counterpoint and underlying message
throughout the piece. Bringing multiple notes and words and voices
together can form its own cultural context, creating a unique sonic and
rhythmic communication.
"My
goal with this piece is to take this sonic and rhythmic language to
create a personal contrapuntal connection between the dance, text, and
vocalists that will give an audience a feeling of witnessing an
undiscovered primitive culture."
Faïn, Kocik, and Jones create embodied sonic maps with the Choir through
linguistic interchange. As Haitian Creole was developed by West African
slaves in contact with French settlers, the pidgin of the Choir is
created as mixture of all of the languages and cultural experiences of
those in the room. In the Choir’s creole all languages are primary,
working toward the realization of a nondiscriminatory, empathetic tongue
that models the change they want to see in society.
Throughout the development of the work the Choir will engage local
communities. Community interviews (recorded in audio and video) will
contribute language and gesture to the libretto. Free and open community
movement and voice classes will bring new voices into the process.
Rehearsal residencies will deepen the content and work-in-progress
sharings will allow for feedback on the performance structure. The Choir
is also working with a documentary filmmaker to develop a film
alongside the live performance and developing a partnership with
Brooklyn College to create a virtual archive of research material that
will serve other scholars and artists working on issues of displacement
and gentrification and expand the impact of the work.
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