PAJ Publications Releases Bonnie Marranca's CONVERSATIONS WITH MEREDITH MONK

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the availability of Conversations with Meredith Monk, by Bonnie Marranca, published by PAJ Publications.

This volume of conversations between Meredith Monk and arts writer Bonnie Marranca offers a richly detailed portrait of Monk, an internationally renowned composer, performer, director and filmmaker who has helped to shape the new vocabularies of contemporary performance. Reflecting on her creative life in music, performance, and film over five decades, Monk offers fascinating insights into how she works, the questions she asks herself as an artist, and the deeply held personal views of art practice as spiritual practice. The conversations cover the entire career of the artist, whose detailed comments on her artistic process generate profound insights into her thinking about working across art forms.

Meredith Monk is celebrating her 50th year as an artist this season, with concerts and performances of her work in several New York institutions -- BAM, Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall and Poisson Rouge. Her newest music-theatre piece, On Behalf of Nature, will be performed as part of the 2014 Brooklyn Academy Next Wave Festival. She has also been appointed the 2014-2015 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall. Monk has made more than a dozen recordings, including the 2008 Grammy-nominated impermanence. Her music can also be heard in films by Jean-Luc Godard and the Coen Brothers, and in the recent HBO series True Detective. Her company, The House, now appearing in worldwide performances, was formed in 1968 to explore interdisciplinary arts. Among her many operas and music-theatre works are mercy and Songs of Ascension (both with the artist Ann Hamilton), Atlas, The Politics of Quiet, Quarry, Education of the Girlchild, 16 Millimeter Earrings, and Vessel. Monk's films and videos include Book of Days, Ellis Island, and Our Lady of Late. Monk has received numerous honors, including the MacArthur "Genius" Award, and several Obies and Bessies.

Bonnie Marranca is founding publisher and editor of the Obie Award-winning PAJ Publications and PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. A recent recipient of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Excellence in Editing Award for Sustained Achievement, she is the author of Performance Histories, Ecologies of Theatre, and Theatrewritings.

Conversations with Meredith Monk is the newest volume in PAJ Publications' Performance Ideas series, which continues the press's editorial engagement with the decades-long discussions on performance/art/theatre practice across media. Other forthcoming volumes include titles on neurosciences and the arts, and sound/radio.

Since its founding in 1976, PAJ Publications has published more than 1000 plays/performance texts and groundbreaking essays in more than 150 books. The triannual PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art charts new directions in performance, dance, video, installations, drama and music.

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 Member Theatres and Affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 13 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org.

Conversations with Meredith Monk

By Bonnie Marranca

Paperback 144 pages

$15.00 978-1-55554-159-0

Includes Illustrations

PAJ Publications Performance Ideas Series

October 2014

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