Elisa Monte Dance performing Dialogue with Vanishing Languages at the Joyce Theater (NYC) in March 2011
UPCOMING EVENTS
Look for perfornances of Dialogue with Vanishing Languages by the fabulous Elisa Monte Dance
March 24-31, 2013
THIS WILL BE OUR CULMINATING EVENT for the Vanishing Languages Project. The[kāj] Ensemble will be in residence along with the string quartet ETHEL and Australian ensemble, Speak Percussion. The residency will be hosted by Brooklyn College, with performances at Roulette.
Featured premieres will include
Biyi-keninjh Kah-yenjdjung Dalabon
Counting in Quileute
Ainu Inuma
Performance info and open rehearsals will be announced as we get closer.
March 31-April 6, 2013
The program from the New York residency will be repeated in San Francisco by Speak Percussion, the Del Sol String Quartet and Nonsemble 6
June 2013
Ipomeo Trio will perform Dialogue with Vanishing Languages at the Scotia Fetival in Canada
Be sure to look for the [kāj] ensemble. on our Facebook page - all of these activities will be announced there.
scroll down for audio samples and the project calendar, partners, sponsors and donations links
Fulcrum Point New Music Project poster for March 2011concert
featuring Jawoyn Dreamscape at the Harris Theater in Chicago
We kicked off the whole project with a series of in-progress performances of Counting in Quileute by the new music all-stars of the the [kāj] ensemble. The performances were held at a fantastic Greenwich Village loft that beautifully intensified the intimacy of the performances.
Check out the pics below and use the link at the top of the page to hear some audio samples.
Since then, Elisa Monte Dance has premiered and toured Dialogue with Vanishing Languages and Jawoyn Dreamscape was premiered by Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago, in a performnace named one of Chicago Classical's Top Ten Performances of 2011.
This is a MiShinnah Productions Project
click here to learn more about the work of MiShinnah
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To be a part of this adventure, please consider a tax-deductible contribution
The Vanishing Languages Project is a series of five multi-media musical works featuring live musicians w/surround sound audio content drawn from field recordings of nearly extinct languages.
The languages Kevin has focused on include Quileute (a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest) Dalabon and Jawoyn (Australian aboriginal languages of Arnhem Land), and Hokkaido Ainu (aboriginal language of the large northern Japanese island).
Kevin spent over two years collecting archival recordings of each of the languages, and traveled to each of these parts of the world to create new field recordings of nearly all of the remaining native speakers of them.
Last year Charlotte Kalama passed away. Her voice is featured prominently in Counting in Quileute and Dialogue with Vanishing Languages. The Quileute language now has two remaining native speakers. There are 3 or less remaining speakers of the Jawoyn and Dalabon languages. The Ainu language now has no remaining native speakers, although reclamation efforts are ongoing.
Half of the languages currently spoken will disappear from the Earth by the end of the century. The vast majority of them will disappear with little record of their having existed.
This project is a large scale exploration of the extraordinary subtleties of human language. It will result in works with musical palettes never heard before and it will introduce uniquely intimate and personalized approaches to performance and musical communication. As all of the pieces will be accompanied by taped material culled from the field recordings of the various languages, it will both seek to acknowledge the world's consumption of this most fragile resource and to embody it's renewal.
Tomas Ulrich and Satoshi Takeishi playing with intensity and grace
Herb Robertson on trumpet
Margaret Lancaster on flute and Joshua Geisler on bansuri
Kevin introduces the band
Sarah Bernstein on violin
Josh again, with Jane Rigler on bass flute
With great thanks to the
Quileute Tribal Council, the Jawoyn and Dalabon Peoples of Central Arnhem Land, the Ainu Cultural Foundation.
Special thanks to the Kayano family, The Japan/US Friendship Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Japanese Bunkacho, Meet the Composer, New Music USA, The New York State Council on the Arts, and all those individuals who guided me through the Cultural landscape of this project.
