“Private Country is a reconstruction of American musical theater through my subjective history, memory, and aesthetic desires. This is an embodiment of longing that smells like the great green grass of our pastoral dreams.”

Where song becomes sound, Tatyana Tenenbaum brings dual identities as composer and choreographer into a single form. She explores the permeable relationship between the voice and body through a series of consecutive duets that mine the continuum from spoken word to pitched singing. Gradations of physicality—from gesture to full phonic embodiment—weave a vocal narrative that is at once a deeply physical and astutely musical expression.

Private Country elicits moments of nostalgia for a classic American pastime. In the tradition of Robert Ashley, Laurie Anderson or Meredith Monk, the musicality straddles a world between song and poem, incurring a series of unexpected shifts in timbre and tone. Movement exists as both evidence and consequence of the singing body.

Music, Choreography, Direction by Tatyana Tenenbaum. Performed by Talya Epstein, Odeya Nini, Peter Sciscioli, Laurel Snyder, Ezra Tenenbaum and Tatyana Tenenbaum. Recorded Sound Engineering by Ezra Tenenbaum. Live Sound Engineering by Adam Bach. Lighting by Madeline Best. Scenic Design by Anne Krauss and Stephen Schaffenberger.

“Song and Script Taking One Space After Another” – Brian Seibert, New York Times

“Process Notes: Tracing a Legacy of American Musical Theater” – Buck Wanner, culturebot