Thursday, October 2, 2008

Not Waving

Regarding Denise's "Not Waving, But Drowning", marcelblog said in a comment that it was good before in its original performance on the ship, but "it's beautiful in a whole new way now."

I couldn't agree more, though I was never at the original performance. Just reading about the whole project, it seems evident that the piece was designed to blend into that context, with its nautical themes, etc. And, at least on the surface level, the piece stands alone very strongly that way. But her choice of that poem obviously could not have been coincidence.

Hearing her wonderfully crisp, ironic declamation, I smile a bit thinking she's sort of channeling Laurie Anderson. And then: "I was much further out than you thought."

::complete loss for words::

1 comment:

Frank Felice said...

Your comment was apt -- I played "Not Waving..." for my composition student who will play the sax part in a performance of this piece here in Indy next month, and I was choked up the entire time -- the fact the Denise is narrating this is heart wrenching.