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With Marie Goyette (sound score, production and voice).
A musical drama originally commissioned for stage by STEIM, Amsterdam.
The story is about two powerful women who come under each other's influence,
thereby releasing unconscious contents. Each begins to see the other
as evil, bringing to life a type of vampire -- a woman who can cut her
body in half -- the once metaphorical beast, known in Philippine folklore
as "the manananggal." During the unraveling of their history, the two
again draw close, the leitmotif of each is firmly underscored as she
projects onto the other woman emotions and elemental forces she has
repressed in herself. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
and Laetitia Sonami
BiographiesMELODY SUMNER CARNAHAN (Santa Fe, NM) received an MFA in writing from Mills College, where she began working with composers, including Robert Ashley. The author of story collections, The Time Is Now and Thirteen (Burning Books), and a Tibetan man's biography, In the Presence of My Enemies (Clear Light), she has published thirty works of fiction and essay in periodicals and anthologies including the San Francisco Chronicle and the City Lights Review. Experimental Intermedia Foundation commissioned a one-hour radio program featuring her collaborative works with composers, and other programs featuring her writing have been aired by KPFA, Berkeley, WEVL, Memphis, and CFUV in Victoria, Canada. She has co-created two works with Laetitia Sonami for NEW AMERICAN RADIO: Manananggal (1994) and The Bench (1995).MARIE GOYETTE (Berlin, Germany) studied piano at McGill University and with Radu Lupu in London. Since 1989 she has been working in the field of electronic music. As part of her vocal and musical composition for Manananggal she developed her electronic shoes and belt during a residency at STEIM in Amsterdam. LAETITIA SONAMI (Oakland,
CA) has been performing live electronic solo works for the past fifteen
years in numerous venues in the United States and abroad, including
Merkin Hall and The Kitchen (NYC), and Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria.
She has been awarded residencies at STEIM in Amsterdam, where she composed
and premiered new works utilizing gestural controllers she developed
and adapted for musical performance. Her music has been recorded on
Imaginary Landscapes (Elektra Nonesuch), Jewel Box (Tellus 26), and
Another Coast (Music & Arts). Sonami created the soundscores, produced
and performed two NEW AMERICAN RADIO works based on stories by Melody
Sumner Carnahan: Manananggal
(1994) and The
Bench (1995).
Other Radio WorksThe Bench (1995)The story takes place in a city square. It depicts an episode in the lives of two street people, a man and a woman, as observed by a narrator who watches from her hotel balcony. Focusing in, the narrator begins to "hear" fragments from the minds of the lovers: The young man, once a classical pianist, now produces a hellish blues, which fuses with the courtyard's musique concrete, with shards of his narcissistic dreams, and with dehydrated strings of the older woman's distorted understanding. The narrator doesn't move to interfere, yet she is compelled by what she witnesses: Is the woman rescuing or destroying the young man? Does he need her or is he trying desperately to get away? Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. |