Party in the Bardo: Conversations with Laurie Anderson—Intermission
Friday, August 14, 2020 at 4:00am
WESU Middletown 88.1FM
Friday, August 14, 2020 at 4:00pm
WESU Middletown 88.1FM
Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 10:00pm
WESU Middletown 88.1FM
The intermission features works by Brian Eno, La Monte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, and Max Richter, as well as parts of Laurie Anderson's most recent collaboration, 2019’s “Songs from the Bardo” with Tenzin Choegyal and Jesse Paris Smith, and William Basinski’s “Disintegration Loops.” The intermission episode represents a pause and offers some different meditative ways to hear music.
"August has always been such a good time to just stop, to be still, to go to the beach, take a long walk, read a really long novel (or try to anyway), swing in a swing, that kind of thing - but how do you stop when things are already stopped?" said Laurie Anderson of the intermission episode.
Laurie Anderson has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, and experimental music. A renowned and daring creative pioneer, she has contributed music to dance pieces by Bill T. Jones and Trisha Brown. Her 2018 recording with the Kronos Quartet, "Landfall," won a GRAMMY Award.
“Since the early ‘80s, I’ve dreamed of...having a radio show in the middle of the night” said Laurie Anderson. “When time slows down, where the lines between sleeping and waking, between dreams and reality, are getting blurred, and when people’s defenses drop away, and logic just seems to be very limiting.”
“Party in the Bardo: Conversations with Laurie Anderson” brings listeners into intimate conversations between Anderson and her close friends and colleagues—artists, writers, and thinkers who share Anderson’s zeal to ask questions, explore, and understand the world. “Party in the Bardo” was created for this moment in time, when our global and local communities are grappling with the new reality of COVID-19. In Tibetan tradition, the “Bardo” is the in-between: a state of existence after death and before one’s next birth, when consciousness is not connected to a physical body. By design, each episode will premiere on Friday at 4am, when thoughts drift and new connections become possible —and a time, in 2020, when many of us are awake and wondering at the moment we are living though. (For those who sleep well, “Party in the Bardo” will also air again the same day at 4pm.)
“Party in the Bardo” was created and hosted by Laurie Anderson as part of her 2019-2020 artist residence at Wesleyan University, and is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Philip J. '71 and Lynn Rauch Fund for Innovation, with support from Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts and WESU Middletown 88.1 FM.
Image of Laurie Anderson by Ebru Yildiz.