In the Sky I am Walking
A maya+rouvelle collaboration with the NY vocal ensemble Ekmeles.
Live-streaming Saturday, July 18 at 8pm EST.
We’ll be streaming in 1080p — we suggest adjusting your resolution accordingly.
Featuring music of
Raven Chacon, Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa (2016)
Karlheinz Stockhausen, In the Sky I Am Walking (1972)
Artists maya + rouvelle have created visual art/video/titling/staging elements for this special event, streamed live from the singers’ home in Brooklyn, NY.
Performers
Charlotte Mundy, Soprano
Elisa Sutherland, Mezzo Soprano
Steven Beck, Piano
Ekmeles’ core female vocalists present a special live-stream edition of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s In The Sky I am Walking (1972), and a November 15th 2019 recording of a live performance of Raven Chacon’s Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa Changing Woman / White Shell Woman.
Both works speak to an “ancient future” via their integration of contemporary and traditional practice.
In The Sky I am Walking was composed during a period when Stockhausen was experimenting with musical forms and experiences based on punctuated gestural, timbral, and harmonic loops. The Diné Bahane’ (Navajo: Story of the People), from which Chacon drew inspiration for his work, involves a similar contemplation of loops in time punctuated by gestures and moments of unity and individuation.
Asdzaa Nádleehé & Yoolgai Asdzaa and In The Sky I am Walking envision an active common ground composed of these two worlds, and energized by the rhythm, loop and nuance of their eternal transformation of each other.
maya+rouvelle’s visual art is intended to evoke the underlying resonance from which these different worlds emerge and unfold. The visual language encoded in the live stream itself: the set, camera angles, choreography, etc., acknowledges our shared moments of social distance and aspirations of transcendence.
Stockhausen’s theatrical work is based on English translations of poetry from the Chippewa, Pawnee, Nootka, Teton Sioux, Ayacucho, and Aztec nations.
Chacon’s work is titled for two powerful goddesses in the Navajo tradition, Changing Woman and White Shell woman. The text draws on important elements of the Diné Bahane’ .
This performance is free to all, and will be online for one week following the live stream. We would like to call your attention to the Navajo Nation COVID19 Relief Fund. Details on donations both monetary and non-monetary can be found at: nndoh.org/donate.html