Composer, performer and artist Meredith Monk is one of the great artistic pioneer
Sedona, AZ — The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of “Monk In Pieces” showing Aug. 30-Sept. 4 at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre.
Meredith Monk — composer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist — is one of the great artistic pioneers of our time, yet her profound cultural influence is largely unrecognized. With Monk’s music at its center, and featuring interviews with Björk and David Byrne, “Monk in Pieces” is a mosaic that mirrors the structure of Monk’s own work and illuminates her wildly original vocabulary of sound and imagery.
As a female artist in the male-dominated downtown arts scene of the 1960s and ‘70s, Monk had to fight for recognition and resources. Early reviews in The New York Times were vicious and sexist: “A disgrace to the name of dancing,” wrote one critic, and “so earnestly strange in a talented little-girl way,” wrote another. Yet as her celebrated contemporary, Philip Glass, says, “she, among all of us, was — and still is — the uniquely gifted one.”
In the film’s final chapters, Monk faces mortality. We see her warily entrust her masterpiece, ATLAS, to director Yuval Sharon and singer Joanna Lynn-Jacobs for a new production at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
For 60 years, Monk has directed and performed in all of her music theater works; now she must learn to let go. What will happen to such singular work after she is gone?
“Monk In Pieces” will be shown at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre Aug. 30-Sept. 4. Showtimes will be Saturday, Sunday and Monday, Aug. 30, 31 and Sept. 1 at 3:30 p.m.; and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 2, 3 and 4 at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets are $12, or $9 for Film Festival members. For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.