In Her Words
This album is a breakthrough for me: it is all electronic, and it is all dance music.
In recent years, I have turned increasingly to electronic music composition as a rich source of experimentation, of new sonorities – and of total control. Or something like that. The result is an eclectic combination of vernacular and classical influences: I refer, in equal parts, to the Bulgarian and Hungarian folk songs of my childhood; to the historically hallowed Western genres of my education; and to the American popular music of my adulthood.
Above all, I search for glimmers of joy and beauty, even in situations (like our current predicament) that are often desperate and ugly.
This recording showcases four results of a four year collaboration with choreographer Ariel Grossman, the founder and director of the all female Ariel Rivka Dance company. Our work together has been steady, fruitful and happy. Ariel constantly asks me to traverse slightly unfamiliar terrain, and the results are eye-opening and refreshing.
The four pieces are diverse in sound, outlook,orientation. But they are unified in theme: they all confront the difficulties faced by women everywhere, of all backgrounds, of all stations in life -themes that live close to my heart.
For a composer used to taking center stage, writing for dance can be a little daunting. The music needs to be infectious, inspiring, rhythmically vibrant, physically compelling. But it also needs to recede slightly into the background to allow the dancing to shine, to engage our full attention. It’s not an easy balance. It’s not an easy dance, one might say.
mOSSY
Track One
Mossy is a dark, haunting duet that reflects the physical, emotional and intellectual consequences of constant intrusion and disruption.
The work gives expression to a mother’s daily life, where familial love evokes both positive and negative impulses; where frustration and desire compete with the need for space and independence; where feelings of claustrophobia conflict with a mother’s responsibility to provide a sense of happiness and well-being for her children. I have incorporated some of my own experiences as a mother in the creation of this fully electronic yet melodic score.
MOSSY
Track One
Mossy is a dark, haunting duet that reflects the physical, emotional and intellectual consequences of constant intrusion and disruption.
The work gives expression to a mother’s daily life, where familial love evokes both positive and negative impulses; where frustration and desire compete with the need for space and independence; where feelings of claustrophobia conflict with a mother’s responsibility to provide a sense of happiness and well-being for her children. I have incorporated some of my own experiences as a mother in the creation of this fully electronic yet melodic score.
UNORTHODOX
Track Two
An original score inspired by the drive and tradition of Klezmer music, Stefania de Kenessey’s Unorthodox was commissioned by Ariel Grossman, the founder and artistic director of the all-female Ariel Rivka Dance company (ARD).
Thematically, the piece explores the emotional distance between our raw, grungy real selves and the simple, polite version that we generally show the world. More metaphorically: what happens when a woman unzips her dress in order to breathe? The title is inspired by the book by Deborah Feldman (and the Emmy-nominated Netflix show starring Shira Haas) about a young woman who leaves a very strict Hasidic sect.
Unorthodox premiered in a video version at the Gershman Jewish Film Festival on November 17, 2020 in Philadelphia; it was subsequently screened at both Detroit Dance and the Istanbul Fringe Festival. Following the lifting of pandemic restrictions, Unorthodox also returned as a centerpiece of ARD’s fourteenth season of live performances.
Unorthodox Redux, an abbreviated transcription for pre-recorded tape and live strings, was commissioned by the Portland-based Orchid Trio (SiYing Ge, violin; Deborah Shuster, viola; Quinn Kun Liu, cello) and had its broadcast premiere on NPR in March 2021.
IN HER WORDS
Tracks 3-6
In Her Words is a four-movement work which – unlike my other dance pieces – incorporates spoken word. Four dancers, who lend their names to the four movements, each sent me a moving, sometimes highly intimate confession about their fears, their anguish, their darkest moments. I was honored to be entrusted with their narratives. I also wanted to respect their privacy because the material was emotionally sensitive, so I broke up their monologues into short fragments that hint at despair without becoming too explicit or too revelatory. Like women everywhere, their (our) voices are still struggling to be heard.
The initial idea of using the personal histories of dancers as part of the musical score came from choreographer Ariel Grossman, who explains: “For the last 14 years of Ariel Rivka Dance, I have had the privilege to process my own stories and experiences through movement on my company of dancers. Ready to hear someone else's story, I’ve chosen to work with four of my dancers, asking each to share and record something profoundly personal and send it to me and composer Stefania de Kenessey. Stefania created a composition inspired and sometimes dictated by the recording. The cadence, tone, speed, craft, and nuance of the dancer’s voice and words contribute to the score.”
In Her Words was funded in part by Nimbus Arts Center and the New Jersey Arts and Culture Recovery Fund of the Princeton Area Community Foundation, and the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation.
LEAD ME ALONE
Track Seven
wrote the music for a piece originally called “Lead Me” during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. Part of a virtual residency with Dance Lab New York NEXUS LAB, a program launched by its Founding Artistic Director Josh Prince, this dance was the first attempt by choreographer Ariel Grossman and I to develop new work exclusively through Zoom. We were delighted that the collaboration somehow, almost magically worked, and the virtual premiere took place successfully on August 28, 2020.
More recently, my composer friend Ionel Petroi added a (live) piano part on top of the electronic score – another wonderful and unusual collaboration, and our jointly composed Lead Me was premiered (still in a taped version) as part of Ariel Rivka Dance’s fall 2021 gala.
I have renamed my earlier, solo electronic score – represented on this disc – LEAD ME ALONE….