Interview by Ciska Hoet
A performance about the legendary American composer and singer Meredith Monk: it cannot be done without female musicians on stage. Or is that discussion just hopelessly outdated? An animated conversation with stage talents Nabou Claerhout, Naomi Beeldens and Anthe Huybrechts.
"Quite honestly? I think it's a shame to dedicate this interview to International Women's Day. I sometimes feel that theme is being imposed on me. If three men are on stage, should they also talk about being men?"
Trombonist and jazz musician Nabou Claerhout does not mince words when it comes to the position of women in the music industry. Even though she gets headwinds from her colleague, soprano Naomi Beeldens: "I just think it's important to keep having this conversation, precisely because that equality is not there yet."
Together with singer and pianist Anthe Huybrechts, they take to the stage in Hey Meredith!, Zonzo Compagnie's first musical stage portrait of a female composer: Meredith Monk.
And while the trio may not be quite on the same page on a theme like women's emancipation, they clearly share the same admiration and fascination for Monk.
I must confess that I did not know her prior to this, but once I started searching for her, I came to see her as a great role model. The way she not only thinks out of the box, but also escapes all kinds of pigeonholes: I can learn a lot from that.
- Anthe Huybrechts
Phenomenon
"She is a true phenomenon," insists Beeldens. "Monk is a versatile talent with a sound idiom all her own. A founder of extended vocal techniques, she uses her voice in a very unique way. She began her career in the 1960s but she has a great influence on the music world to this day."
Huybrechts nods. "I must confess that I didn't know her prior to this, but as soon as I started searching for her, I came to see her as a great role model. The way she not only thinks out of the box, but also escapes all kinds of pigeonholes: I can learn a lot from that."
In the run-up to this musical theatre performance for young audiences, the trio had an extensive online conversation with Monk. "Because I'm a jazz musician, she immediately recommended a good jazz documentary starring women," says Claerhout, laughing.
"She's very open and funny but it's also clear she knows what she wants." The creators got Monk's fiat to work with some of her compositions, as well as to work with a trombone, even though Monk never worked with this instrument herself.
"It's nice that we can work with a lot of material thanks to her varied oeuvre," says Huybrechts. "There is film and choral music and her specific way of moving, but she also made documentaries, for example, on which the projections we use are based."
By following her own creative drive so uncompromisingly, she has almost automatically become a figurehead.
- Naomi Beeldens
Being a woman in a man's world
Then again, the conversation turns to Monk's position as a woman in a man's world. "I don't know whether Monk actively sought to profile herself as a feminist throughout her career," says Beeldens, "but it is undeniably a theme in her work, sometimes quite literally as in Education of the Girlchild.
By following her own creative drive so uncompromisingly, she has almost automatically become a figurehead." "For sure, I think you used to have to fight harder than you do now as a woman," Claerhout adds. "I have never felt different at school or while studying at the conservatory with fellow musicians because I am a woman, but of course I realise that it has not always been that way."
We should not forget that sexism still exists, in obvious and less obvious ways, hidden in work processes or in the way it is communicated.
- Anthe Huybrechts
All equal
"I do share that opinion," Claerhout stipulates. "It's not because I don't experience it that other people don't have negative experiences. We should all make sure everyone is equal.
Still, I don't want to dwell on the fact that I am a woman all the time, let alone that I would view men more negatively because they are men.
By the way, for Hey Meredith! we may be three front women on stage, but we have an amazingly diverse crew behind us. The direction, the choreography, the videos: all powerful work by talented people."
So powerful that they would be willing to play live for Monk? That question causes hilarity. "We would be SO nervous should we know she is in the audience," it sounds in chorus ...