Great Hymn of Thanksgiving
Encyclopedia
Great Hymn of Thanksgiving is a 2003 performance piece composed by playwright and composer Rick Burkhardt and performed by The Nonsense Company.
The performance is often paired with Conversation Storm
, another piece written by Burkhardt.
The piece is a trio between the functions of music, noise, and semantic meaning, wherein each function can mingle with the others, lose itself in reveries (under fields of motive force that assert themselves with varying degrees of insistence), or, when necessary, take a solo.
The performance is often paired with Conversation Storm
Conversation Storm
Conversation Storm is a 2003 play written by playwright and composer Rick Burkhardt and performed by The Nonsense Company.The performance is often paired with Great Hymn of Thanksgiving, another piece written by Burkhardt.-Summary:...
, another piece written by Burkhardt.
Summary
Great Hymn of Thanksgiving takes place at a dinner table, where the sounds of conversation have been replaced by fragments of news reports from Iraq, scraps from the Army prayer manual, invented Arab folk tales, and a recurring State of Emergency pointing everywhere and leading nowhere. The sounds of the table itself struggle to bring this “conversation” into a confrontation with material reality.The piece is a trio between the functions of music, noise, and semantic meaning, wherein each function can mingle with the others, lose itself in reveries (under fields of motive force that assert themselves with varying degrees of insistence), or, when necessary, take a solo.
Awards
- 2007 San Francisco Fringe Festival - Best New Play
- 2008 NYC Frigid Fest - Best of Fest
- 2008 NYC Frigid Fest - Audience Choice