Accompanied by five other multi-instrumentalists, this piece is an extension of the artist’s solo work where she invites each collaborator and their universe of sounds as a unique composer and improvisor to sing and rotate around various percussion and harmonic instruments. With six voices and twelve hands, Maviel can explore more complex polyrhythm and counterpoint and multi-directional meditations on relational matters.
Drifting towards trance, Time is Due addresses common yet complex human questions present in collective singing traditions since the dawn of humanity: what is our coexistence made of? How is coexistence transformative? How is culture relaying our ability to reach one another? Is there a line we can call separation between each other and how? Is love enough of an instinct to teach us coexistence?
Using music as a matrix to hint at the multiplicity and ubiquity of one tone, one word, one moment in time, and one self, mutable characters represent evolving archetypes, and relay each other on questioning the existence of love as an ideal relationship conduit—which requires clearing. Exploring the entrancing percussive power of keyboard language in relation to futuristic possibilities of sound synthesis, as well as concentric cycles of breath and heart beat already present in nature-based music making, the piece aims to bring insight into our existence at large as inherently interdependent. Song will be a common ground to develop this multi-layered conversation, in its quality to carry both personal and impersonal discourse in between narration and contemplation.
Performance date: 02/05/2019, 06/28/2019
Episode release date: 08/07/2019
Anaïs Maviel is a vocalist, percussionist, composer, music director, and community facilitator. Her work focuses on the function of music as essential to settling common grounds, addressing Relation, and creating a utopian future. Inspired by Edouard Glissant’s reflections on Creolization, she has associated her practice with the inextricable currents that move spaces and people between times and lands. The contemporary context of re-formulation of self, reality and social structures led her to question the use of language, and to explore its vibratory essence in music. Involved at the crossroads of mediums – music, visual art, dance, theater and performance art – she has been an in-demand creative force for artists such as William Parker, Steffani Jemison, Daria Faïn, Larkin Grimm, Shelley Hirsch, Mara Rosenbloom, Melanie Maar & La Bomba de Tiempo – to give a sense of her eclectic company. As a leader she is dedicated to substantial creations from solo to large ensembles, music direction for cross-disciplinary works, and to expanding the power of music as a healing & transformative act. She performs extensively in New York, as well as in North, Central & South America and Europe. Her solo debut hOULe, out on Gold Bolus Recordings, received international acclaim and she recently released an eponymous album with carnivalesque duo DIASPORA. With a Masters Degree in Aesthetics (Literature, Arts & Contemporary Though – Paris VII Diderot University), she focused her scholarly works on Afrocentric paradigms of Creative Music as utopian alternative politics. Anaïs Maviel pursues essay and poetic writings as part of her artistic inquiry and published a recent article in French magazine Revue et Corrigée, interviewed by bassist and collaborator Maxim Petit about the stakes of multiculturalism in contemporary music. Recent achievements also include: Co-Music Director for NOISE, a new musical by César Alvarez (Public Theater, NYC, 2018) Full length work Metadire premiered by Cross Times (Roulette, NYC, 2018) DIáSPORA eponymous album release on São Paulo based label Hérnia de Discos as the culmination of a South, Central & North America tour in partnership with Chiquita Magic (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, United States, Canada, 2017-2018) Composer, Music Director & Performer for “Mayday Heyday Parfait” in collaboration with the Commons Choir, Daria Faïn, Robert Kocik & Darius Jones (BRIC, NYC, 2017) Lectures & Master Classes at UNILAB – University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (Redenção, BR), MAMAM – Museum of Modern Art Aloísio Magalhães (Recife, BR, 2017) & Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Lima, PER, 2018) Composer, Music Director & Performer for Urban Bush Women’s Summer Leadership Institute “Undoing Racism” final performance, Kumble Theater, NYC, 2016.