Ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. Crazy life. 2. Life in turmoil. 3. Life disintegrating. 4. Life out of balance. 5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.

The Philip Glass Ensemble performs Philip Glass’ score live alongside the screening of the cinematographic masterpiece, Koyaanisqatsi produced and directed by Godfrey Reggio. Reggio’s pioneering art film, without dialogue or narrative structure, is a unique and haunting look at the super-structure of modern life, integrating images, music, and ideas contrasting scenes from America’s natural and urban landscapes. Koyaanisqatsi lets audiences experience the acceleration and density of modern society in a new way. It invites them to consider the benevolence of technology and the notion of progress in the world we live in.

Philip Glass has been part of the MASS MoCA family since the museum’s earliest days, developing new work in residence and performing multiple times over the course of its history.

About the Philip Glass Ensemble:
The Philip Glass Ensemble (PGE) comprises the principal performers of the music of Philip Glass. In 1968, Glass founded the PGE in New York City as a laboratory for his music. Its purpose was to develop a performance practice to meet the unprecedented technical and artistic demands of his compositions. In pioneering this approach, the PGE became a creative wellspring for Glass, and its members remain inimitable interpreters of his work.  Many of Philip Glass’s most celebrated works were expressly composed for the PGE: its core concert pieces Music in Twelve Parts, Music in Similar Motion, and Music with Changing Parts; the opera and musical theater projects Einstein on the Beach, Hydrogen Jukebox, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, Monsters of Grace; and the full-length dance works Dance (Lucinda Childs) and A Descent Into the Maelström (Australian Dance Theater). The PGE is most widely acclaimed for its soundtracks to Godfrey Reggio’s trilogy of wordless films: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi. It is also featured in Glass’ operas La Belle et la Bête and The Photographer. For more information, visit philipglassensemble.com.

Made possible in part by the Barr Foundation.