Splitting / Absence
Section: New York
As part of the Historias initiative, The Clemente Center and New Latin Wave present Section: New York, a preview workshop of Sokio’s opera Splitting/Absence, in development with National Sawdust.
This multi-phase operatic work explores the life and legacy of 1970s artist Gordon Matta-Clark, whose radical interventions redefined urban spaces.
Each chapter of the opera is supported by a different commissioner, with Historias commissioning the New York chapter.
Saturday May 3, 2025
7:30pm
LATEA Theater
The Clemente Center
Composed by Sokio
Words by Gordon Matta-Clark
Poems by Natasha Tiniacos
Gabriel Hernandez (Tenor)
Linda Collazo (Mezzo)
Sasha Gutierrez (Soprano)
Erin Reppenhagen (Mezzo)
Alexa Rosenberg (Mezzo)
Adele Fournet, Keyboards and electronics
Sokio, Vibraphone and electronics
Lucia Cuba, Wearable objects design
Matias Ulibarry, Stage and light design
Jacob Garcés Márquez, Sound design
Amanda Riesman, Producer
With the support of The Clemente Center, The Met Museum, National Sawdust, New Latin Wave, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes Chile, LATEA
This event is a part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestros Sonidos festival
Special thanks to Jane Crawford, Jessamyn Fiore, The Estate of Matta-Clark.
SPLITTING ABSENCE
Horizon I have
Never seen I make
I make the horizon I have never seen
Splitting
Parallel lines
Cut through
The line before
The line after Absence
The continuous line is light breaking into
And we shall follow
The window Is a fracture
The emptiness Its purpose
Light cuts through
Like a blade In the abandoned home
Absence/ presence
The horizon
Steps to anywhere
What else can enter into voids
If not, the promise of space.
The promise, the dream, the pledge
The dream is a grid
Folded backwards
Hollow presence
Hallowed absence
Is it about the flesh Left out
The other tissue, I take I draw to break away from shadows
Splitting
Earth so vacant
Empty scattered lots of time
Bare piece of ground
Mine
Are its boundaries
Or is its Absence?
Zoned for future wind tunnels
Bare flesh Will know
The danger around it
Bare flesh
Already knows
What it is to wake up from the recurrent dream
Of being parted
Voids for man-made darkness
Darkness with regulations
And trees planted in their adolescence make best neighbors
Presence/ absence I talk to the moon
Because I can see it It has ruined the plans of hollows
Emotional
Unclear
The horizon
Steps to anywhere
What else can enter into voids
If not, the promise of space.
The promise— the dream, the pledge
The dream, a grid
Folded backwards
Hollow presence
Hallowed absence
DUST AND RUGS
Drawers full of time
Dust and rugs
Time, dust, time, dust, time
Drawers full of time
Dust and rugs
Time, dust, time, dust, time dust, time
Drawers full of time dust and rugs full of time
Dust, Time, Dust, Time, Dust
Full of time time time
Drawers full time
Dust and rags
Drawers full of time
Dust, Time, Dust, Time
THE FIRST AND LAST STEPS
The first and last steps
Steps of anywhere
Opening to the indivisible
Drawing trough the whole
To summarize its parts
Drawing trough the whole
To summarize its parts
In the night you hear
See
All In the night you hear
See, All Cave, Depth, Whole, Parts
The first and last steps
Of anywhere
In the night
You hear, See, All
Here is what we have
To offer you
In its most elaborated form
PASSAGE
Parallel lines
Cut trough
Line before line after I make the horizon
I have never seen
The continuous line is light breaking into
And we shall follow
The window is a fracture
Emptiness its purpose
Lights cuts trough like
A blade in the abandoned home
The horizon steps to anywhere
What else
What else can enter into voids
The dream
The pledge
A grid
Folded
Backwards
The dream
UNFOUND
Short term eternity
In the night
See, hear, all
We will have to work
To get there
To unravel
The unfound
Lost once and forever
First step on the moon
On the moon
FROM THE CURRENT DREAM
Voids for man made darkness
With regulations
And trees planted
In their adolescence
From the current dream
The first and last steps
Steps of anywhere
The first and last steps
Steps of a NY where
The first and last step
Man holes exposed edges
The first and last steps
Steps of anywhere
Voids for man made dark
Steps of anywhere
Voids for man made dark
From the current dream
Splitting/Absence lyrics contain fragments of Gordon Matta-Clark’s Art Cards, and poems by Natasha Tiniacos