Monk at the Met, Feast of Souls, The Beloved
Photo by Andy Mogg
2000 & 2001 / ODC Theater
October 2-5, 2002 / Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
The piece has been previously envisioned as a trilogy. Monk was originally envisioned and performed as three separate works: The first two chapters have been performed for the public. Phase one, Survival and phase two, Monk at the Met: Feast of Souls met critical acclaim when they appeared at the ODC Theater in 2000 and 2001, respectively. What was once a separately performed trilogy now exists as one holistic piece simply called, Monk.
Monk is the beginning of an ongoing journey to document the personal and the collective, a treatment of social and historical cause-and-effects, refracted through the prism of the individual. It is the convergence of histories, a meditation on our inevitable connectedness. It reaches out through cultural communities and runs to a convergence of histories. In essence, it is the story of one person’s journey lived through different bodies, memories, and experiences: an individual example of a collective truth.
Staged as a multi-disciplinary evening of dance, video, music and text, Monk is a depiction of one person’s journey lived through different bodies, memories and experiences. Monk is a collage of memory, time and possibility told through the mind of a storyteller. Insightfully exploring and juxtaposing the relationship of form to text, Mann's work is an exhilarating style of performance that goes beyond dance theater to capture the evolution of choreographic expression.
While Mann’s choreography is precise and highly disciplined, she imbues her work with the impression of spontaneity expressing balance, passion and lyricism. Dubbed by the Oakland Tribune “the mother of free wheeling ritualized tough girl and boy dance” Mann’s movement vocabulary includes contact improvisation, martial arts, acrobatics, salsa, tango, modern dance and ballet.
2002 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts credits:
Dancers: Yannis Adoniou, David Bentley, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Yayoi Kambara, Jose Navarrete, and Marintha Tewksbury
Musicians and composers: Norman Rutherford and Peter Whitehead
Environmental designer: Matthew De Gumbia
