MEDIATHEK

Thrēnos (for the Throat)
for vocal soloists and sound processing 

... Ashamed and ashamed for being ashamed we look away and ask for you to do the same— The transition from animal to meat is one that intentionally mutes the life and death of its subject. Unlike humans, these animals generally die in concealment, and the dead are not mourned. In Threnos, what is so often hidden behind the scenes is brought onto the stage in a para-liturgical rite, a performance that offers space for reckoning and reflection. Throughout, the throat acts as a kind of locus—a metaphorical and literal site of language, ingestion, song, slaughter, swallowing, and vulnerability, connecting the mourners and the mourned in their shared physicality. The idea for the music originates in the Old Greek mourning song. The work is in a sense a form of paraliturgical service, reflected in the titles of individual sentences: Litany, Consideration, Perseveration, Declension, Invocation, Expiation, Retreat. They are, or at least they sound as if they were part of a liturgical song. Thrēnos evokes the idea of contrasts between a mass for dead people and a mass for dead animals – and that of similarity in this duality.

/ PRODUCTION /

COMPOSER / MUSIC: Jacob Cooper
DIRECTOR: Karmina Silec
STAGE DESIGN: Dorian Silec Petek
TEXT: Dora Malech
COSTUME DESIGN: Tina Bonca
(LIVE-)VIDEO: Young Joo Lee
MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Karmina Šilec

PERFORMED BY: New Music Theatre Choregie (SI)
PRODUCTION: Carmina Slovenica 2020

DATE OF RECORDING: Monday, March 9, 2020

[msb]

Powered by Froala Editor