VAK:
SONG
OF BECOMING
A Modern Musical Awakening
Premieres September 20-21, 2013
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Conceived and Directed by Ann Dyer
featuring Ann Dyer
the Vak Choir of Everyday Voices
The Vak Ensemble with soloist Hafez Modirzadeh
Choreography by Erika Chong Shuch
Co-composed by Ann Dyer & Tim Volpicella
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Premieres September 20-21, 2013
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Conceived and Directed by Ann Dyer
featuring Ann Dyer
the Vak Choir of Everyday Voices
The Vak Ensemble with soloist Hafez Modirzadeh
Choreography by Erika Chong Shuch
Co-composed by Ann Dyer & Tim Volpicella
buy your tickets now >
Vak: Song of Becoming is a YBCA-commissioned, inter-disciplinary musical piece by Ann Dyer that explores the profound impact sound — and particularly voice — has on our experience of being. Inspired by the ancient Indian goddess Vak who creates the world through sound vibration, Vak: Song of Becoming calls on yogic sound philosophies and practices originally used for seeking Realization to create a immersive sonic experience. Built on a choir of 108 “everyday” voices, Vak: Song of Becoming blurs the lines between audience and performer, ancient and contemporary, aesthetic and spiritual in a concert experience that arouses our awareness of self and our connection to others: a modern musical awakening.
The new work comes out of a period in which Dyer withdrew from performing and recording to explore her personal relationship to voice and self through the study of Indian sound philosophies and practices, and marks a fascinating re-integration of Dyer’s artistic aspirations and personal inquiries. The title, Vak: Song of Becoming refers to the Indian philosophical concept and goddess Vak (or vāc)—Sanskrit, meaning “to sound, to utter or recite” — which holds that the world comes into being through sound and word. Arising from this understanding come sound practices that can create personal experiences of great depth, subtlety and connection. In this piece Dyer experiments with these ancient principles and practices in a new, contemporary context, creating a monumental work at a new intersection of art and mindfulness.
Composed by Dyer and Tim Volpicella with choreography by Erika Chong Shuch, the new piece brings together Dyer’s close collaborators over the last twenty years with the recently created Vak Choir of “every day” voices. Performed by Ann and her instrumental ensemble featuring John Shifflett on bass, Jason Lewis on drums, co-composer Tim Volpicella on guitar and featured soloist Hafez Modirzadeh on saxophones; a vocal ensemble; and the Vak Choir. The 108 voices of the Vak Choir are at the heart of this work. Their number of 108 is based on traditionally auspicious number of the number of beads on the Hindu mala, used for chanting meditation. As a diverse ensemble of “everyday” and professional voices, they are being brought together to form an enormous foundation of vocal resonance for the composition. The Rather than being coached to “blend” with the voices of other choir members, Vak Choir members, representing all ages, backgrounds and abilities, are encouraged to find the purest, fullest expression of their own unique voice to contribute to the single voice of the group, to find unity in diversity.
Vak: Song of Becoming takes place in four acts, leading the audience through a musical representation of the experience of mantric meditation, or what non-dual Tantric philosophy refers to the “Four Levels of Word”: Vaikharī, the level of ordinary everyday “corporeal” speech; Madhyamā, the level of thought; Paśyantī, the “visionary” level of precognitive will; and the ultimate Parā Vāc, the foundation of all language and the ground of reality. Through ascetic lives of arduous practice the hatha yogis of ancient India trained to follow vac, or sound, through the increasingly subtle Four Levels of Word until they experienced the ground of being, or Parā Vāc, the essential nature of reality. The text of the piece is inspired by and includes excerpts from medieval hatha yoga treatises, devotional chants, tantric mantras, and the hymn Vak Suktam, (Rig Veda 10.8.125), attributed to female rishi Vak Ambrini. The Vak Suktam is considered 2500-3000 years old, and is written in the voice of the Goddess Vak, in which she declares, “I myself am queen, a treasury of riches. I am insightful, first among the gods worthy of worship. As such, the gods have divided me up in many places, me of many locations, me, entering many forms.”
Vak: Song of Becoming blurs the lines between audience and performer, time and space, ancient and contemporary, aesthetic and spiritual in a concert experience that seeks to arouse our experience of sound and to its relationship to self and others, a piece Dyer refers to with a smile, as a "modern musical awakening.”
Composed by Dyer and Tim Volpicella with choreography by Erika Chong Shuch, the new piece brings together Dyer’s close collaborators over the last twenty years with the recently created Vak Choir of “every day” voices. Performed by Ann and her instrumental ensemble featuring John Shifflett on bass, Jason Lewis on drums, co-composer Tim Volpicella on guitar and featured soloist Hafez Modirzadeh on saxophones; a vocal ensemble; and the Vak Choir. The 108 voices of the Vak Choir are at the heart of this work. Their number of 108 is based on traditionally auspicious number of the number of beads on the Hindu mala, used for chanting meditation. As a diverse ensemble of “everyday” and professional voices, they are being brought together to form an enormous foundation of vocal resonance for the composition. The Rather than being coached to “blend” with the voices of other choir members, Vak Choir members, representing all ages, backgrounds and abilities, are encouraged to find the purest, fullest expression of their own unique voice to contribute to the single voice of the group, to find unity in diversity.
Vak: Song of Becoming takes place in four acts, leading the audience through a musical representation of the experience of mantric meditation, or what non-dual Tantric philosophy refers to the “Four Levels of Word”: Vaikharī, the level of ordinary everyday “corporeal” speech; Madhyamā, the level of thought; Paśyantī, the “visionary” level of precognitive will; and the ultimate Parā Vāc, the foundation of all language and the ground of reality. Through ascetic lives of arduous practice the hatha yogis of ancient India trained to follow vac, or sound, through the increasingly subtle Four Levels of Word until they experienced the ground of being, or Parā Vāc, the essential nature of reality. The text of the piece is inspired by and includes excerpts from medieval hatha yoga treatises, devotional chants, tantric mantras, and the hymn Vak Suktam, (Rig Veda 10.8.125), attributed to female rishi Vak Ambrini. The Vak Suktam is considered 2500-3000 years old, and is written in the voice of the Goddess Vak, in which she declares, “I myself am queen, a treasury of riches. I am insightful, first among the gods worthy of worship. As such, the gods have divided me up in many places, me of many locations, me, entering many forms.”
Vak: Song of Becoming blurs the lines between audience and performer, time and space, ancient and contemporary, aesthetic and spiritual in a concert experience that seeks to arouse our experience of sound and to its relationship to self and others, a piece Dyer refers to with a smile, as a "modern musical awakening.”