Composer, singer, director/choreographer Meredith Monk created Quarry: an opera in three movements as a live stage work between 1975-’76 with her company, The House, as a mosaic of images, movement, dialogue, film, sound, light and music. A meditation on WWII and recurring cycles of intolerance, fascism, and cruelty in history, Quarry centers on a sick American child (played by Monk) whose world darkens as her illness progresses. This film version, shot in the Lepercq Space at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1977, was directed by Amram Nowak and supervised by Monk, and includes her short silent film of the same name. Considered a masterwork of the 20th century, the piece is as prescient and relevant today as it was 40 years ago, with its portrayal of the deleterious effect of an autocratic society on the collective mind, body and spirit. It is at once a myth, a documentary and a memorial.

Meredith Monk, Amram Nowak, 1975/76, USA, 82 min