A loft with Lilith: Female artists find inspiration in an ancient myth of assertive womanhood

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Autumn, 2001 by Sarah B. Hood

A TRULY MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTISTIC PROJECT IS A RARE THING; ONE WHOSE CONTRIBUTORS ARE ALL WOMEN IS EVEN RARER. NONETHELESS, OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST YEAR Toronto-based Mooredale Concerts, under the direction of Kristine Bogyo, has commissioned and premiered just such a work, A Song Of Lilith.

The piece, which has already been performed in Toronto, Hamilton and Vancouver, includes projected paintings, live original music and a dramatic verse text performed by a seasoned stage actor. Everyone associated with the project is a woman; and even the subject matter is female.

The Judeo-Christian myth of Lilith tells that before God made Eve as a partner for Adam, there was another wife. Lilith is said to have challenged Adam for status equal to his; when this was not granted she took wings upon herself and flew away. Pursued, she vowed to prey upon human babies for all time. Whether she is viewed as a monstrous demon or (as she sometimes is) a totemic spirit for the contemporary women's rights movement, Lilith is an intriguing figure.

Bogyo originally conceived the idea after having seen a show of work on the theme of Lilith by painter Lilian Broca. She was struck by the dramatic images, and also by the possibilities of the mythic material. "Aside from being a good story it, also has a feminist angle to it," she comments.

Her first step after discussing the idea with Broca was to approach the award-winning novelist Joy Kogawa (author of Obasan, Naomi Road and Itsuka, among other works), to create a verse text to accompany the visual images. Finding musicians presented no problem; Bogyo simply chose violinists Erika Raum and Julie Baumgartel, oboist Glare Scholtz and violist Kathleen Kajioka from among the frequent performers with Mooredale Concerts. (Bogyo, herself a cellist, also participated).

As for the composer, that was a more difficult choice. "I went to the Canadian Music Centre and I asked 'Can I see some music by women Canadian composers?'" says Bogyo. Just as she was beginning to run out of choices, she happened upon the work of Larysa Kuzmenko. "I had never heard of her before, but I found her music absolutely fantastic," says Bogyo. "I gave her an absolutely cold call. When she heard the whole project, she really liked it."

Kuzmenko quickly agreed to the assignment, "I really liked the idea of poetry and art combined together," she says, "And when she told me it was a multimedia show, I thought 'Wonderful!'"

"It was so exciting when we first got together," says Bogyo, adding that the music "is not like a background to the narrative. The music is a very important part of it."

As for the fourth component, the live performer, Bogyo chose Moira Wylie for the initial Toronto production. In later versions, veteran actor Barbara Gordon appeared. She is familiar to stage and screen audiences across Canada for appearances in such productions as Thirteen Hands and The Dining Room (National Arts Centre); How Could You, Mrs. Dick? (Hamilton and Toronto); A Streetcar Named Desire (Vancouver Playhouse) and You Never Can Tell (Shaw Festival), among many others.

Kuzmenko found the project stimulating. "When I was writing it I would read the poetry over and over again, and look at the artwork," she says. Although much of her previous work is written in a more romantic style, she says that for A Song of Lilith and other recent projects, she has found herself delving "into the darker parts of my psyche."

A Song of Lilith allowed Kuzmenko to explore a wide range of musical moods and styles. For example, she says, "When Lilith is born from the earth, the first part of the poem" she wrote "oozing, murky music, almost like Stravinky. I wanted to make it that organic, so you could really get the idea that someone was being born."

In another section, "Lilith's flight, where Lilith grows wings and flies away, I wanted to create music that sounded like flying. There's no melody. It's based on triads, with these little tremolos in the strings." For the section called "The Dance of Lilith", she continues, "I wanted to make something quite seductive, so I created a kind of jazz dance. I chose whatever I needed."

A book documenting the text and artwork used in the show has recently been published. Meanwhile, to judge from the enthusiastic audience response, there is more than a market for multimedia work by women artists.