The Brilliant and the Dark’s All-Girl Gaggle Choir

July 14, 2010



The Brilliant and the Dark was a 1969 composition for a woman's choir that explored women's history from the Middle Ages to WWII, narrated through the eyes of "witch-hunters, embroiderers, crusaders’ wives, plague-stricken women, mourners and war workers." This year, open-music archivists/artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White acquired permission to use the piece for a live "remix," performed by the 22-woman Gaggle choir and filmed at The Women's Library exhibition hall. Gaggle, shod in futuristic Eyes Wide Shut cloaks and rhombus-shaped hats, are alternately scary, evocative, and sympathetic—the video updates '60s avant-garde choreography into a really DIY-looking aesthetic as it underscores the history within the clip. As contemporary feminist art goes, this is the kind of piece the institutions of the world should be trying to curate, rather than, you know, yet another group show about blood and the body politic. (via Jenny Woolworth)

The Brilliant and the Dark’s All-Girl Gaggle Choir