Julius Eastman
Moviment
Fighting against the "invisibilisation" of minority cultures and racial and sexual discrimination, Julius Eastman (1940-1990), a free-spirited and militant artist, described himself as "Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest".
An eminent figure of the New York scene as a composer, conductor, singer, pianist and choreographer, Julius Eastman also played the Lincoln Center with Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic, and recorded an album of experimental disco with the producer Arthur Russell.
According to a 1980 press release, "Eastman is a sort of cult figure among composers and singers". A pioneer of the minimalist movement, he was among the first composers to combine elements of pop and minimalist music.
Following his death in 1990, after seven years of "deliberate martyrdom" between psychotropic drug-taking and vagrancy in homeless shelters, he was largely forgotten. A great number of his scores disappeared with him.
His music remained dormant for decades until Unjust Malaise, a 3-CD set of his work, was released by New World Records in 2005. Since the early 2010s, his work has been re-emerging and attracting growing interest, thanks in particular to the efforts of composer Mary Jane Leach.
Eastman’s life and work is presently the subject of renewed focus, punctuated notably by the discovery of new recordings and scores, the publishing of the book Gay Guerrilla by Renée Levine Packer and Mary Jane Leach, (French translation in 2022), and a contemporary interest on the part of artists, musicians, choreographers, academics and journalists.
"Julius Eastman’s bold and brilliant music grabs your attention; it is wild, grandiose, delirious and demonic, an uncontrollable personality springing from sound", wrote Alex Ross for The New Yorker.
Julius Eastman’s work is currently represented by the publisher G. Schirmer.
Courtesy les artistes et la galerie Marian Goodman © Adagp Paris, 2023
Courtesy des artistes et de la galerie Marian Goodman © Adagp Paris, 2023
Gay Guerilla (2023) explores the legacy of the Afro-American queer composer Julius Eastman (1940–1990) through dance, music and architecture. By channelling the unique voice of Eastman, who died in 1990, Gerard & Kelly continue his practice, incorporating abstraction and politics in an installation brought to life by a series of performances developed specifically for the Centre Pompidou’s gallery 3.
With Samuel Akins✢, Soa de Muse, Guillaume Diop✢, Conor Hanick✳, Coleman Itzkoff✳, Awa Joannais✢, Germain Louvet✢, Enzo Saugar✢, Adam Tendler, Davóne Tines✳, Richard Valitutto, Seth Parker Woods
✢ from the Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris
✳ Founder member of AMOC*
Continuous installation
Performances – Thursday, 29 and Friday, 30 June; Saturday, 1st July 2023 – on reservation
Discussion with Gerard & Kelly and the artists – Friday, 30 June 2023
Live broadcast of the performance – Saturday 1st July 2023 at 7pm
Concept and choreography: Gerard & Kelly
Music: Julius Eastman
Prelude to The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc (1981); Gay Guerrilla (1979)
Installation design: Gerard & Kelly in collaboration with Simon de Dreuille
Assistant choregrapher: Julia Eichten*
Costume design: Camille Assaf
Make up: Yumiko Oka
Hair and make up: Nadeen Mateky
Lighting design: David Debrinay
Production: Vincent Brou
Stage manager: Camille Laut
Understudies: Augustin Cimbault and Marlon Thiebaux-Amaranthe
Costume assistants: Ida Maité Hahn and Lelie de Mercey
Wardrobe: Clément Bourgis
Production assistant: Pierre Tanguy-Cottin
In partnership with Opéra national de Paris
Production: & Compagnie
Coproduction: Centre Pompidou ; Festival d’Aix-en-Provence with the support of enoa and programme Europe créative de l’Union européenne ; AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company)
Residency: CN D, Centre national de la danse (Pantin); Yamaha Artists Services (New York)
With the support of DRAC Île-de-France et Adidas Paris
With the participation of Centre LGBTQI+ Paris Île-de-France
Music reproduced with the permission of G. Schirmer, Inc.
Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery
Acknowledgements: Alexis Néons, Régie Pianos, Harlequin Europe, Bastien Mairet, Félix Touzalin, UY Studio and PERSTA
Anaïs Ngbanzo, A different score, 2023
Music Screening
For more than two years, Anaïs Ngbanzo lived surrounded by archives and notes of the composer and pianist Julius Eastman (1940–1990) before publishing the French edition of Gay Guerilla: Julius Eastman and His Music, co-written by Renée Levine Packer and Mary Jane Leach (Gay Guerrilla : L’histoire de Julius Eastman, Paris, Éditions 89, 2022).
In March 2022, at the invitation of Cyrus Goberville, she worked with the British composer Devonté Hynes (founder of Blood Orange) to have Eastman’s music performed, over two evenings, at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection.
A different score, the documentary she subsequently produced, is a complex mosaic of archive images, interviews and live performances that paints a portrait of a composer still relatively unknown in France.
Preview screening – Friday, 30 June 2023
