STILL,
Music
from Still/Here (1994) The choreographer Bill T. Jones and I met in 1993, and I was immediately enlisted to compose the "Still" section of his dance and media works. The full-evening piece integrates movement, video, and words Jones gathered across the country in "survivor workshops," whose participants were living with life-challenging illnesses. I went through hundreds of hours of videotapes from these workshops to shape lyrics which people of every age, color and gender had shared with us. I worked closely with Jones and video artist Gretchen Bender for months, then composed the songs in solitude. The eight pieces explore introspection, denial, fear and panic, yet ultimately are defiant and life-affirming. Bill and I agreed that the folksinger Odetta was the perfect voice to convey the range of feeling of the songs. She recorded my score with the Lark String Quartet and percussionist Bill Finizio. Meanwhile, rock guitarist Vernon Reid was creating the "Here" section, investigating many of the same workshop ideas. |
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| Still/Here was premiered at the Festival de la Danse in Lyon, France in 1994, with subsequent performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. The work went on to worldwide performances for two years, to critical acclaim and controversy. I fashioned the songs for "Still" in a deliberately vernacular style, not nearly as fastidiously notated as most of my other vocal works. The jazz singer Cassandra Wilson recorded some of the songs for Bill T. Jones' reinvestigation of the work, The Phantom Project: Still/Here Looking On, which premiered in 2004. The songs can be sung by any type of singer, and are open to multiple interpretations. |
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