A Break From Reality is a piece of music for piano trio + crotales, written as a part of the National YoungArts Week with a premiere by Miami based ensemble Nu Deco. Inspired by the
painting of the same name by fellow YoungArts finalist and
visual artist Danielle Sung, the piece sees a listener lost in an urban jungle,
left to find mental composure amidst the noise. This piece is a
conceptualization of the centralized demeanor we create to shield
us from social chaos - a realm of organic unity and subconscious bliss.
Michelle Skinner, Violin
Ashley Garritson, Cello
Jenny Snyder, Piano
Matt Nichols, Percussion
Video and Audio: Alex Markow
Slide
as the smell of minced garlic, boiling soy and oyster sauce,
and blended ginger and sliced bell peppers swim in waves of
Chicken broth leaves the finest Chinese Restaurant. Takeout
invading the cluttered streets of exhaust: daylight saved by
mustard-colored lights smearing the clear, country-blue sky
and the thick clouds like the coughs of smothered babies lying
in strollers—a pool of blankets—keeping them warm, away from
the chills of New York City, as buildings reflect deep-brown, lima
green, scarlet red, and bumblebee yellows as rushed trucks take time
to honk, to warn, stay away from the edge of the streets, escape
into the plastered, flickering propaganda—ads of dreams belonging to
another, becomes your thought’s possession. The latest technology
wired to break and crack at every fall, at every swipe—HEY! WATCH
WHERE YA GOIN’ WILL YA? Slideshows of Chanel Bags and smell
goods, and street SAW-SAGE dogs loaded with toppings you’ve never
heard of. On the corner, your mouth coated in smooth, chili sauce,
awaiting wrist-wipes to continue wandering—hiding—listening to taxis
yield and brake in traffic as New Yorkers bustle to auditions, locations
unknown, maybe jobs they wish they enjoyed, to hotspots of street artists
swinging their arms and muscular legs above their heads and through loopholes
of magical realms where our eyes reveal their persons, all dancing and beating
the pot and bucket drums, our heartbeats the rhythm, the portal opens. So, twist and
contort your mind like their bodies, to be of another world, a foreigner to a land who allows
your reality to be stamped on a canvas, a moment in time when two of your persons co-existed.
Ekphrasis by Youjaye Daniels, YoungArts Finalist for Writing (Poetry)
