MAN UP (2021)

~14’

solo double bass performer

Premiered by Will Yager for Oh My Ears music festival, AZ April 18, 2021

Note on the video below: video contains brief nudity and language not suitable for children. Viewer discretion advised.

'Man Up' is a music theater work on masculinity and what that means to be a "man" today. Our solo double bassist has quite an undertaking: he speaks texts taken from Peggy Orenstein's book "Boys and Sex" and her article "Can Masculinity Be Redeemed?", while playing original music that amplifies these learned “masculine” behaviors and misconceptions. All the while, he must fully undress. We hope that this work is a small action that can show other ways of performing gender and how our ideas of masculinity can be indeed redeemed from violence and bigotry.

Text by Peggy Orenstein, used with permission.

Texts edited by Nathan Hall with Alan Olejniczak and Andy Lynes.