Berklee

' COLLEGE OF MUSIC
The Lawrence and Alma Berk Recital Hall, 1140 Boylston Street, Boston
Tuesday, March 1, 1994 7:00 pm



MIRIAM
presented by

THE WASTELAND COMPANY

Parts I and II of the music theater trilogy for performance artist and computer controlled digital piano.

I. The Mirror is an act without words. Isolated at home, and at the edgo of madness, a woman portrays
for herself false and outhenitic roles in society.

II. The Chair takes place in an asylum.

The First Part
presents her character in a mosaic of short sentences and movements. She is trying to write a text she
can perform for shortly expected visitors (her children?)

The Second Part

1) She tries to give her words more freedom, but asks if anyone wants to hear them.

2) She performs a fragment of a melodrama accomapnied by her own trombone playing: a woman has
a nervous break down and floods her apartment with water and song.

The Third Part

1) She asks herself is silence is not the best.

2) She writes on her hands; otherwise she can only look at her bindings.

3) She is horrified that she is solid, but at least all of her things are there.

4) She tells a story: A caesarean birth, a nervous break down. She breaks off.
5) She asks herself if she has too much fantasy, and whether she really exists.
6) She thinks of her visitors and worries that she will lose her voice.

7: She finishes the broken off story.

8) She plays her trombone.

9) She still bleieves she will find some words, and tries again to sing.

Performance Artist, Abbie Conant
Music, Text, Direction, William Osborne

This appearance by CONN Educational Specialist Abbie Conant is made possible in part through a grant
JSfrom United Musical Instrments, USA, Inc., and by the Berklee Composition and Brass Departments.