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Visiting Artist Meredith Monk

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In creating art, sometimes it's the connections that aren't immediately intuitive that make the biggest difference.

When Anaar Desai-Stephens, assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the Eastman School of Music, was thinking about who she might invite for Eastman's Glenn Watkins lecture, there was one name that was at the top of her list. When she contacted Missy Pfohl Smith, director of the program of dance and movement, and director of the Institute for Performing Arts (IPA), about her idea to bring Meredith Monk to campus, the timing could hardly be more perfect.

"Meredith was on a short list of people that we were interested in for our inaugural visiting artist," says Pfohl Smith about the new initiative within the Institute for Performing Arts.

While music and dance go hand in hand, collaborations between Eastman and IPA are sometimes challenging due to student schedules and being located on two different campuses. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to bridge that gap.

Meredith Monk is an artist whose work spans decades and many genres, making it difficult to define, but connects to fields as diverse and music composition, vocal performance, dance, film. For an artist who defies those typical categories, the collaboration between Eastman and IPA was a good fit. It exposed music students to elements of dance and movement that are less a part of their curriculum, and it taught dancers how to incorporate music, vocalization and the associated rhythm into their practice.

Most importantly, it offered students an opportunity to work with and hear from a successful artist of particular distinction, and to learn that there is not one pathway to success, but that it's more of a journey.

While Monk's visit opened new doors for musicians at Eastman, it might be an even clearer embodiment of the mission for the Institute for Performing Arts.

"I think it's really unusual to have an artist who has such a draw for students in music from Eastman, from the River Campus, but also students who are interested in theater and performance of all kinds," adds Pfohl Smith.

"That's what the Institute for Performing Arts would like to do is bring people together so that they can collaborate–so that they can learn from one another, and so that they can be inspired to keep making their own work."

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Academic
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