Meredith Monk’s Indra’s Net Receives North American Premiere in New York
Meredith Monk’s Indra’s Net receives its fully staged North American premiere at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory in September.
Park Avenue Armory presents the North American premiere of Indra’s Net by renowned composer, singer, and creator Meredith Monk on September 23-October 6. These performances will open Meredith Monk’s 60th Season of performing and creating work.
For Indra’s Net, Monk returns to the Armory for the first time since her 2012 residency with her latest creation that offers an interplay of music, movement, video, and architecture to embody celestial, earthly, and human realms, affirming life and a sense of connection to each other and the world around us.
The Armory will be configured to create a circular offering space engaged by performers and video projections, creating a fully immersive audience experience that is part performance and part installation.
In her program note, Monk states: “My aspiration for Indra’s Net was to create an immersive installation/performance work evoking both vastness and intimacy and affirming the interconnectedness of life.”
Indra’s Net features Monk together with her Vocal Ensemble, a 16-piece chamber ensemble, and an additional eight-member chorus, alongside two audio-visual installations, Rotation Shrine (2021), a contemplative offering on cycles of life and death, and Offering Shrine (2023), a meditation on human artifacts that may be rediscovered in the distant future.
The work, both delayed by and informed by the pandemic, takes inspiration from an ancient Buddhist and Hindu legend in which an enlightened king, Indra, stretches a large net across the universe with an infinitely faceted jewel placed at each intersection. Each jewel is unique yet reflects all the others, illuminating the interdependence of all living things.
“Meredith Monk is a living legend in contemporary performance whose interdisciplinary practice continues to engage audiences in new and emotionally evocative ways,” said the Armory’s Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director Pierre Aud. “Indra’s Net is a deeply felt response to the need for connection in our current moment, grounded in Monk’s ingenious vocal and instrumental arrangements and one-of-a-kind artistic perspective. I’ve long wanted to bring Monk back to the Armory to celebrate her legacy and collective oeuvre.”
Indra’s Net is Monk’s third and final work in a trilogy dedicated to our relationship with the natural world, preceded by On Behalf of Nature (2013) and Cellular Songs (2018). It debuts at the Armory following an initial concert performance at Mills College in 2021 and its world premiere in June 2023 at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam.
Performance Information
September 23–October 6, 2024
Park Avenue Armory | New York, NY
More info
Artist Talk
Sunday, September 29 at 5:30pm
Music, Direction by Meredith Monk
Costume and Scenic Design by Yoshio Yabara
Lighting Design by Joe Levasseur
Sound Design by Daniel Neumann
Video Scenarios/Direction by Meredith Monk
Cinematography by Ben Stechschulte
Projection Design by Jorge Morales Picó
Music Supervision/Score Preparation by Allison Sniffin
Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
Paul Chwe MinChul An, Theo Bleckmann, Gideon Crevoshay, Allison Easter, Ellen Fisher, Katie Geissinger, Meredith Monk, Allison Sniffin voices
John Hollenbeck percussion
MEREDITH MONK Indra’s Net (North American Premiere)
Photo: Christine Alicino