John Moran: The Solo-Series
2 August 2015, 7 p.m.
29 May 2015, 7 p.m.
See photos from the first performance.
The Solo-Series is a trilogy of theatre monodramas performed by the composer. The performance is based on a precise integration of recorded human voice, sound arrangements and careful on-stage choreography. A hidden musicality of everyday life is unveiled through multiple repetitions and gradual accumulation of elements of movement and sound within individual scenes. The Solo-Series is a fascinating and hypnotizing three-part story of a journey from Poland to Bangkok and later to Amsterdam.
John Moran
American composer, choreographer, actor, director and performer. Protégé and disciple of Philip Glass who described him as the most important contemporary composer. Moran smoothly integrates movement, music and theatre to create distinctive works of art with a unique style, highly valued by audiences and critics alike. Throughout the 1990s he produced large scale theatre musical performances (presented at venues such as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York), featuring performers like Uma Thurman, Iggy Pop and Allen Ginsberg. Throughout the years 2005-2011 he collaborated with Saori Tsukada, a Japanese dancer, whereas the years 2010-2013 became the time of his solo projects. In the past decade his productions have been presented internationally and some of Moran’s works are permanently exhibited by The Museum of Modern Art in New York. His best known works include Jack Benny! (1988–89), The Manson Family (1990), The (Haunted) House (1992), Meet the Locusts (1993), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1997), Book of the Dead (2nd Avenue) (2000), A Lake of Tears (For Cabell) (2004), John Moran and his Neighbor, Saori (2005), Zenith 5! (2006), Saori’s Birthday (2007), John Moran and Saori (In Thailand) (2010), John Moran: Etudes: Amsterdam (The Con Artist) (2012), John Moran: Goodbye, Thailand (Portrait of Eye) (2013).
The event is a part of Polyphonies project.
The term Polyphony alludes to the collaboration of diverse musical voices merging to form a significant whole. In this program the title is applied metaphorically, as throughout the concert series we will notice a polyphony of attitudes, genres and individualities.
How might it relate to Kantor’s work?
Kantor’s performances were “composed” in a nearly musical fashion, and their narratives often differ from typical dramatic thinking. His performances are musicalized also in the sound structure of the actions performed and scenes happening on the stage. Thus noises such as stomping, thudding, rattling, squeaking and a host of others can, in their own right, be considered as musical material, subject to composition by the author of the performance.
What unites Tadeusz Kantor and the artists of the Polyphonies is a radical, avant-garde attitude, with particular emphasis on spectacular action, the collision of remote elements (in the fields of life and art), and an expressive use of the objects and sounds of everyday experience.
Anna Szwajgier
Curator
The project was produced with the support of a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
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