Archive of Innovative Composer, Director, and Choreographer Meredith Monk Acquired by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Interdisciplinary Collection of of Cutting-Edge Artist Inspires New Library Classmark

Music from Meredith Monk's
Our Lady of Late

December 6, 2006, New York, NY – The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has acquired the archive of the pioneering composer, director, and choreographer Meredith Monk, it was announced today by Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. “Over a period of more than 40 years Meredith Monk has created a body of strikingly original works that challenge traditional forms and styles,” said Dr. LeClerc. “At the Library for the Performing Arts, her archive will be preserved as a source of knowledge and inspiration for future generations of creative artists, scholars, students, writers, and anyone interested in understanding the nature and impact of her work.”

The archive consists of both personal and professional papers, including audio/visual material, music scores, process notebooks, personal notebooks (dreams and ideas), research material, slides and photographs, correspondence, writings by and about Monk (including interview transcripts), production folders, copies of storyboards, project records, financial records, programs, awards, clippings, posters, and marketing/publicity materials.

“Meredith Monk’s archive will reside at the Library for the Performing Arts along with those of such other great and innovative artists as Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Jerome Robbins, and Kander & Ebb, to name just a few,” said David Ferriero, Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries. “She will be part of a nexus of creative artists whose collections have established the Library as a vital center for anyone seeking information on the performing arts of our times.”

Deeply evocative yet rooted in reality, Monk’s work deftly integrates film, theater, song, and dance to examine the human experience. She creates operas, musical theater works, films, and installations that are poised at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of her performances, researchers will be able to go to any of the Library’s divisional service desks – dance, theater, music, or recorded sound – to request materials from this collection.

“Meredith Monk’s boundary-breaking work has inspired us to rethink the way we classify artists’ collections at the Library for the Performing Arts,” said Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. “Rather than categorize her to fit into one of our four existing research divisions, we have created a new ‘Performing Arts’ classification to accommodate the personal artistic vision that she has expressed over the decades.”
Recognized internationally as a major creative force in the performing arts, Monk has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the MacArthur “Genius” Award in 1995. She has been acclaimed by audiences and critics from New York to California, from France, Germany, and Italy to Japan and Israel. “When the time comes, perhaps a hundred years from now, to tally up achievements in the performing arts during the last third of the present century, one name that seems sure to loom large is that of Meredith Monk,” Alan M. Kriegsman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning former critic of The Washington Post, wrote in 1984. “In originality, in scope, in depth there are few to rival her.”

Asked to comment about the archive, Ms. Monk replied, “Preservation was my highest priority, but how the archive can live on in the future was just as important. In the end, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts was the best choice. I believed my work should remain in New York City with the largest community of creative artists and arts enthusiasts – all those who can benefit from these resources – where the archive can continue to give rise to new connections and synergies.”

The material in the archive will allow scholars and researchers to trace the development of Monk’s works, including such pieces as 16 Millimeter Earrings, American Archeology #1: Roosevelt Island, Book of Days, Education of the Girlchild, impermanence, Juice, Quarry, The Games, Vessel, and Volcano Songs. For example, handwritten and typed notes in the project file for the 1966 work 16 Millimeter Earrings reveal various early ideas. One page, entitled “Abortion or 8 Millimeter Earrings,” begins:

the lecture -- implied relation of my marking and the tape
but times of complete anti-theses of off kilter movement
all wrong like sway back and turned in awkward anti-dance
power will come from subtlety:
indicated on phase
direct anti-thesis
idiosyncratic movement with no relation

pool -- a sheet on the floor with film projected on it.
Images that are not delineated as a man or a flower but
Recognizable.
The Sea
Fire
Image of myself in a mirror or the floor
Shot from above. So that pool becomes mirror

Another page from the file is entitled “DUET with 16 Millimeter Earrings,” and details very different ideas and images for what many consider to be Monk’s first important work, which was also her first piece to integrate film with dance and music.

The archive includes letters to and from other notable artists, including David Byrne, Blythe Danner, and John Cage. Her impact on other performers can be seen in a letter from Michael Cerveris, the Tony Award–winning actor, who performed the Young Man in Monk’s The Games in 1984. Afterward he wrote to her to congratulate her on “a beautiful evening…. You were so informal and fun that it changed the whole nature, whole character of the audience…. While my training has been most thorough in theater, I’ve always sought – consciously or not – a synthesis of acting, music and movement. That’s why The Games was such a joy for me. It’s definitely the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. I owe so much to you for that and for the enhanced perception and perspective I gained in that six weeks.”

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts has had a long relationship with Meredith Monk. In 1977 the Library filmed Quarry at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and in 1993 it filmed Education of the Girlchild at The Joyce Theater. Ms. Monk has also participated as a subject in the Library's Oral History Project, and in 1996, the Library celebrated her extraordinary achievements with a retrospective exhibition, Meredith Monk: Archeology of an Artist. Designed by the artist herself, the exhibition brought together artifacts and other items representing productions from the start of Monk’s career in 1964 through to her latest work. Taken as a whole, the props, original designs, storyboards, programs, posters, photographs, recordings, and films revealed Monk’s unique artistic perspective, which continues to guide her creation of imaginative new worlds.

About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world’s most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Division, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts – whether professional or amateur – the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the leadership support of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman.

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Contact :             Rima Corben   212.592.7700

RC:12.06.06