Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Performed by Eastman (piano, voice) and Joyce Solomon (piano). This is a lo-fi recording of a live performance, in which Eastman's music accompanied Molissa Fenley's dance piece 'Geologic Moments'. Dustin Hurt has kindly provided further information about the music performed, erroneously listed in some sources as a version of Eastman's earlier 'Thruway' (1969). "The music here by is actually two compositions - (1) an untitled work (or title currently unknown) composition for two pianos, and (2) "One God" a quasi-improvisatory work for voice and piano." Hopefully more pieces by Eastman, in cleaner recordings, will come to light!
An excerpt from a review of the performance is included below.
Anna Kisselgoff, review of the performance of 'Geologic Moments' by Molissa Fenley and Eastman at the Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, (New York Times, November 6, 1986)
[...] And now, in ''Geologic Moments,'' [Fenley] forms an even more theatrical partnership with Julius Eastman, a pianist-composer who played here in tandem with Joyce Solomon or performed as a soloist with both dissonant resonance and a strangely muted evangelical fervor.
It is true that the first half of the work uses a tape by Philip Glass -excerpts from another production to be seen in the Next Wave, in a work that Robert Wilson calls ''the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down (Cologne Section).''
The Glass score, however, serves merely as aural background, and while Ms. Fenley and her dancers apparently wish to dance against the music, they actually seem to be ignoring it. This is much more difficult to do given Mr. Eastman and Ms. Solomon's presence on stage, their grand pianos standing head to head in the second half. In a succeeding short portion, Mr. Eastman himself half-sings, half-chants, ''One God and Nothing but God.''
[...] Ms. Fenley's program notes suggests that shifting geological strata can be used as a metaphor for changing emotional states, especially those that occur suddenly. This idea is not expressed literally in the work - at best it is a springboard and an outline for certain structures in the choreography. The last sections, especially, use layers of patterns that overlap or succeed one another.
[...] When Mr. Eastman and Ms. Solomon, after the intermission, play Mr. Eastman's music, the chords on the piano - sparse and deep - seem to deliberately slow the dancers down. But when the music on the two pianos gains texture, the dancing picks up furiously. It dies down as three of the dancers bow. The fire curtain comes down, the house lights remain off. The curtain rises and one piano is now missing. Mr. Eastman plays and intones several phrases, repeating them later at a higher pitch. The spatial arrangement of the dancing grows bolder, bigger. Gary Mintz's lighting grows darker. The dancers freeze. For some reason, this viewer was reminded of Kandinsky, of the idea that apparent abstraction contains a metaphysical point of view.
Performed by Eastman (piano, voice) and Joyce Solomon (piano). This is a lo-fi recording of a live performance, in which Eastman's music accompanied Molissa Fenley's dance piece 'Geologic Moments'. Dustin Hurt has kindly provided further information about the music performed, erroneously listed in some sources as a version of Eastman's earlier 'Thruway' (1969). "The music here by is actually two compositions - (1) an untitled work (or title currently unknown) composition for two pianos, and (2) "One God" a quasi-improvisatory work for voice and piano." Hopefully more pieces by Eastman, in cleaner recordings, will come to light!
An excerpt from a review of the performance is included below.
Anna Kisselgoff, review of the performance of 'Geologic Moments' by Molissa Fenley and Eastman at the Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, (New York Times, November 6, 1986)
[...] And now, in ''Geologic Moments,'' [Fenley] forms an even more theatrical partnership with Julius Eastman, a pianist-composer who played here in tandem with Joyce Solomon or performed as a soloist with both dissonant resonance and a strangely muted evangelical fervor.
It is true that the first half of the work uses a tape by Philip Glass -excerpts from another production to be seen in the Next Wave, in a work that Robert Wilson calls ''the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down (Cologne Section).''
The Glass score, however, serves merely as aural background, and while Ms. Fenley and her dancers apparently wish to dance against the music, they actually seem to be ignoring it. This is much more difficult to do given Mr. Eastman and Ms. Solomon's presence on stage, their grand pianos standing head to head in the second half. In a succeeding short portion, Mr. Eastman himself half-sings, half-chants, ''One God and Nothing but God.''
[...] Ms. Fenley's program notes suggests that shifting geological strata can be used as a metaphor for changing emotional states, especially those that occur suddenly. This idea is not expressed literally in the work - at best it is a springboard and an outline for certain structures in the choreography. The last sections, especially, use layers of patterns that overlap or succeed one another.
[...] When Mr. Eastman and Ms. Solomon, after the intermission, play Mr. Eastman's music, the chords on the piano - sparse and deep - seem to deliberately slow the dancers down. But when the music on the two pianos gains texture, the dancing picks up furiously. It dies down as three of the dancers bow. The fire curtain comes down, the house lights remain off. The curtain rises and one piano is now missing. Mr. Eastman plays and intones several phrases, repeating them later at a higher pitch. The spatial arrangement of the dancing grows bolder, bigger. Gary Mintz's lighting grows darker. The dancers freeze. For some reason, this viewer was reminded of Kandinsky, of the idea that apparent abstraction contains a metaphysical point of view.
