Text-compositions is a musical form of conceptual art that immerged in the 70s in parallel to graphic scores. It often consists of a series of directives for the realization of a sonorous idea. I began using this form when I was a member of the collective the GERM (Groupe d’études et de réalisations musicales) from 1970 to 1973. It’s a form that works best when the musicians have reservoir of sounds at their disposition and have played together sufficiently to be familiar with each other’s style. That is certainly the case with the cellist Hélène Bass with whom I have performed since 1995. The composition-texts in Another River were inspired by excerpts of Margalit Berriet’s texts related to Ayelet Berman-Cohen’s exhibition, Another River.
Eugénie Kuffler, Paris March 18 2024
Hélène Bass 2015
© Jo Boulestreau Editions- Buissonnières (2002)
2023 Eugénie Kuffler
©David Lantman Cano
Hélène Bass
A lifelong pianist (with a passion for 4-handed playing and accompaniment), and a cellist just a little less so (with the Loewenguth orchestra since '66), Hélène has been able to build bridges with all forms of artistic expression, to the point where her music is immersed in conversations, carried by spaces of sound, gesture, color and sculpture.
Working simultaneously or intermittently as a schoolteacher for 28 years and as a musician, in 1974 she began performing with the experimental theater group Les Matinaux, and recording with composer P. Alrand for Théâtre Éclaté. She has worked with D.Montain, l'Arfi, l'Ariam; S. Mowlik,T. Nawrot,V.Lehuche, and choreographers K. Saporta and O. Duboc, for whom she composes and improvises.
PERFORMANCE: Ayelet Berman-Cohen – narration,
Eugenie Kuffler – flutes, tenor sax,
Hélène Bass – cello.
Eugénie Kuffler
Born in 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland, emigrated to Paris in 1967 where she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger, Max Deutsch and Henri Dutilleux, flûte with Alain Marion and electro-acoustical music at the GRM. In 1970 she joined the GERM, a composer-performer collective; in 1973 Philippe Drogoz and she founded 010 an avant-garde cabaret ensemble. In 1980 she created the solo tryptic icara night: icara or the flight inward, iris, from moon to water, a piece which continues to orient her work. She creates radio works for France Culture – J/E, adapted from The Lesbian Body by Monique Wittig, codirected with Syn Guérin ; the ecstatic spiral notebooks. In 1995 Nathalie Braux, Aldridge Hansberry, Hélène Bass, Francine Mercier and she founded the composer-performer collective Hot Chills and played together until 2012. In 2000 she founded Conexión Habana, a troop of 8 Cubain dancers, musicians and comedians plus herself and through 2007, premiered 6 chapters of Etno Poesía Cuba in Havana. Currently she improvises with whoever’s out there and is preparing a music-theater solo – Survival Technics.
“In my dreams I would awaken in the shoes of people touched by war. Soldiers, mothers who lost their sons, women and children from both sides of an ancient conflict. And then, another kind of dream arrived, offering the possibility of an end to war. In these dreams, women – who I had learned to call my “enemy” – came to me again and again and fed me the most delicious bread. This was a surprise, being fed by my foes. I knew that one day I would make them an offering in return.”
The ADAMÂ Foundation, founded in 2020, with the intention of helping refugees who have lost their homes, their land and their traditions to violence and war.
Ayelet built her first bakery in the Oruchinga Settlement Camp in 2021. In her words “the act of breaking bread together creates a new narrative of community, healing, and an end to war.”
From April 12 to 12 May 2024
Mémoire de l'Avenir will host an exhibition by
Ayelet Berman-Cohen [ adama-foundation.org ]
PREVIEW
THE OTHER RIVER
Dreaming the End of War
Ha'lom & Lechem חלום ולחם | Dream & Bread
Rêve & Pain | Alhilm & Walkhubz الحلم والخبز
I was born into war.
The beginning of any story sets the tone.
It carries meaning.
My roots wind down all the way to the heart of war
but not only.
When the dreams started coming to me, I was shown two rivers, flowing powerfully right next to each other - in the same direction.
One river told the story of war
hard, brutal, unforgiving
something we see with our regular eyes.
We are used to this story,
It is familiar to us, like how the world is.
The other river is wide, shimmering with flashes of gold, it is the quiet one, to see it we need to pay attention.
I dream intensely about war,
but the other river gifts me with its own dreams and visions.
The opposite of war, says the quiet river, is not peace, but magic. It carries what we cannot see. What we cannot imagine in our ordinary lives.
I decided to listen to the other river.
PERFORMANCE
12 04 2024 20H
Ayelet Berman-Cohen
If you wish to submit a project or activity for our Live Performance Satellite Events, please contact us via email at contact@memoire-a-venir.org
.
Ayelet Berman-Cohen was born and grew up in Israel, where she studied art and photography and worked as a staff photographer for a leading Israeli magazine.
After coming to the States, she received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts.
Ayelet is the mother of seven children and has raised many more in the healing home she created in Los Angeles. She has been dreaming in indigenous ways for many years, which means simply that the dreams serve as guides.
Currently she is the founder and CEO of the ADAMÂ Foundation, dedicated to building bakeries in refugee camps and other places of need around the world. The work carried out by Adama was inspired by her dreams.
OPENING
12 April 2024
PRESS 12H30
PUBLIC 18H - 21H
PERFORMANCE 20H
Ayelet Berman-Cohen
FREE
admission
OPENING 12 04 2024
7PM-9PM
PERFORMANCE 8PM
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