As the story goes, Indra, the king of the gods, takes a net and stretches it across the universe. At each joint is a jewel, unique and infinitely faceted, that reflects all the others in an endless web of interdependence.
This tale, from Indian myth, and shared by Hinduism and Buddhism, is the basis for Meredith Monk’s immense, interdisciplinary “Indra’s Net,” which has its North American staged premiere at the Park Avenue Armory on Monday. The concluding installment in a trilogy about connectedness and the natural world, it arrives at the start of Monk’s 60th performance season, and in New York, where her idiosyncratic artistry has long been synonymous with the downtown scene and spirit.
“I just am really grateful that I’ve had a life where I’ve done what I’ve loved all these years,” said Monk, 81, a polymathic avant-gardist who has long eluded categorization, and has composed, choreographed, directed, sung and played in her works. “I’ve held out this long, and my voice is holding out.”
“Indra’s Net” is preceded in the trilogy by “On Behalf of Nature” (2013) and “Cellular Songs” (2018), but it was the first to enter Monk’s mind. Nearly 15 years ago, she was working on “Weave” for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; written for two vocal soloists, an orchestra and chorus, its structure recalled, for her, the myth’s story. But the title “Indra’s Net” didn’t feel right for that piece, so she held on to it for later.
Still, she was haunted by the title and the story. Monk is an artist who embraces humanity with Whitmanesque generosity, and her earlier works have shared themes with the interconnectedness of Indra’s net. It was at the front of her mind as she made drawings after the premiere of “Weave.” And then again one afternoon as she sat at her piano and came up with eight-bar themes for “jewels” in the net. But she put all that away and wrote “On Behalf of Nature” instead.
It wasn’t until she worked on “Indra’s Net” in earnest, nearly a decade later, that she began to see a trilogy take shape: “On Behalf of Nature” meditates on ecological forces; “Cellular Songs,” on the body and on micro- and macrocosmic scale; “Indra’s Net,” on connection. These works have political implications, but they aren’t didactic. Monk said she doesn’t want to tell people to “throw away their plastic bags” after hearing “On Behalf of Nature,” for example, but she does want to present “the principles of nature and show, in a more abstract way, what we’re in danger of losing.”
In the case of “Indra’s Net,” Monk uses abstract vignettes, as well as pairings of voices and instruments, to represent commonality. And, as an ensemble show in which performers never leave the stage, it reflects the inherent interdependence of music as an art form. From there, the piece’s themes can be extrapolated.
“We are all on this plane,” Monk said, “we’re all born, we’re all going to die, and we all want to be happy, so why are we wasting our time? We get tangled up in our heads so much, so I just feel, in a way, that this is a kind of clarification for audiences. There’s a lot of space to rest the discursive part of your mind.”
She composed the piece in roughly two phases. First, she wrote alone, and then she brought material to an ensemble of vocalists with whom she often collaborates, and who are conversant in her artistry. (Monk’s music for singers unfolds in wordless vocalise, communicating with a kind of ur-expression rather than definite language.) The middle section of the piece, which features individual performers or small groupings, was shaped on the singers in person, like sculpting, she said.
Katie Geissinger, who has performed with Monk since the premiere in 1991 of “Atlas,” her magnum opus, described one scene becoming simpler during that process. “The great thing about working with Meredith is, you’re not just handed a score,” Geissinger said. “She starts with fragments, and she really designs it on the body.”
“Indra’s Net” is Monk’s largest work since “Atlas,” a sprawling opera for 18 voices and a chamber orchestra. She composed it for eight vocalists, an additional eight-member “Mirror Chorus” and 16 instrumentalists; the production, with costume and scenic design by Yoshio Yabara (whom Monk called “an artistic soul mate”), also includes two installations and an enormous stage, matched by a circular screen for video projections.
Ellen Fisher, a colleague of Monk’s for a half-century, said: “I’ve seen the arc of her work, and I think it’s grown in its emphasis on the complexity of the music, and how the music envelops the whole work. But this piece takes sound and architecture and space into consideration more than ever.”
The first version of “Indra’s Net,” though, was primarily musical. One section, “Anthem,” was adapted during the pandemic into a virtual performance for Monk, her singers and the ensemble Alarm Will Sound. Later, before theaters in the United States reopened to full audiences, it was presented in concert at Mills College in California and streamed online.
Monk had originally imagined “Indra’s Net” at the Armory, and she brought the project to its artistic director, Pierre Audi. They hadn’t worked together since the early 1980s, when Audi was the founding leader of the Almeida Theater in London, where he brought in artists like Monk, Philip Glass, John Cage and Robert Ashley (who were filmed there for the 1983 documentary “Four American Composers”).
“She was exactly the same as she was in the ’80s,” he said, laughing. “With her age, and incredible journey as an artist, she needs to show this work in New York City.”
But an Armory premiere, which would be expensive, wasn’t immediately possible, so “Indra’s Net” was staged first at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam last year. That production, Audi said, made the Armory’s financially viable; it will travel to New York with few changes, and those mostly artistic rather than technical.
It’s likely that “Indra’s Net” will resonate differently than it did during the pandemic. Then, its themes were reflected in a world united in tragedy and difficulty, but divided in its responses. Now, it is arriving at the Armory colored more by a tensely polarized election season.
“We’re living in a quite toxic period,” Monk said. “Even marking art in a time like this is a political statement. Hopefully, this is an antidote. I feel that when you see this ensemble onstage, you see an alternative way of thinking about human behavior. You really see an example of generosity and sensitivity and kindness in action.”
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