There Must Be Other Names for the River
There Must Be Other Names For The River is a graphic score and performance piece developed in collaboration with Marisa Demarco and Dylan McLaughlin and realized by performers Monica Demarco, Ryan Dennison, Kenneth Cornell, Antonia Montoya, Mauro Woody, Jessica Chao, and Marya Errin Jones.
The online performance space and Tributaries community space are available now at othernamesfortheriver.com. Please visit to listen and respond!
The score for six singers is based on streamflow data from the river known today as the Rio Grande. Each singer channels the river, representing a point where flows were observed and recorded. Arranged in the shape of the water body within the performance space, the singers' voices change in intensity with the flows and distort over time as human interference occurs along the length of the river.
After embodying past decades, the singers project possible futures for the voice of the river and the bodies through which its waters flow.
The Rio Grande itself is a living being who has experiences over time including birth, growth, and possibly death. By listening and channeling the river, can we change our relationships with the river and see beyond its uses to humans? Can we hear the river as more than a resource?