above: excerpt from silent film Lament for Rachel Corrie, 2021, with music by Zaid Jabri, Beati Pacifici, In Memoriam Rachel Corrie, 2010, recorded in 2021 (to hear the sound press the sound icon located in the lower right corner of the moving image)

LAMENT FOR RACHEL CORRIE

2021

digital 4K film projection, color, silent

duration: 6 minutes 15 seconds, limited edition, 3 + 2 AP

with:

Beati Pacifici | In Memoriam Rachel Corrie

composed by Zaid Jabri for voice and piano in 2010

recorded in 2021

Credits

directed, filmed, choreographed and edited by Monika Weiss

movement performer: Ruth Blair Moyers

soprano: Dima Bawab

piano: Ghadeer Abaido

Artist Statement

Rachel Corrie was a peace activist who was killed while trying to prevent the demolition of a home in Gaza. I first heard Zaid Jabri’s Beati Pacifici | In Memoriam Rachel Corrie in 2017 as part of the MATA’s festival New Music from the Islamic World. I was deeply moved by every note of his music. At the time I was working on a public project devoted to victims of violence, both colonial and gender-based, the monument/anti-monument, Nirbhaya. It struck me that both women, Jyoti Singh (posthumously named Nirbhaya) and Rachel Corrie, were 23 years old at the time of their gruesome killing. In 2020 Zaid told me he was planning a new release of the piece and asked if I wanted to create a silent film as a visual counterpoint to the music. I imagined blossoming flowers growing out of the tortured body, giving back the beauty, honoring her martyrdom. In the Lament for Rachel Corrie I filmed and choreographed a performer, Ruth Blair Moyers, through the choreography of slow movement I hoped to create a sense of horizontality and eulogy. I montaged the film to create a sense of the body of the lamenting woman, as if forever suspended, outside of a specific time or space. In the film, the lamenter’s red scarf blossoms and blooms, in spite of the horror. In memory of Rachel Corrie.

- Monika Weiss

Zaid Jabri Statement

In 2010, a Palestinian soprano asked me to write a piece for soprano and piano. At the time, I was reading a lot about the situation of the Palestinian people, and had just learned about Rachel Corrie. Corrie was a peace activist who died while trying to prevent the demolition of a home in Gaza. I was touched by the story of a young woman who had left her own home to take up the cause of dispossessed people, and who met such a tragic death. One evening, as some verses from the Beatitudes, Beati pacifici, were ringing in my mind, I had my hand on the piano playing F#, G#, A, echoing the rhythm of those syllables. That became the basis the six-minute song, which I wrote that very night. The piece was performed in many venues on both sides of the Atlantic. This new recording was made by the Palestinian pianist Ghadeer Abaido, and the Paris-based Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab."

- Zaid Jabri

Beati pacifici, quoniam filii Dei vocabantur. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Matthew 5:9

Exhibition

Zaid Jabri’s Beati Pacifici | In Memoriam Rachel Corrie (music) and Monika Weiss’ Lament for Rachel Corrie (film), Streaming Museum, New York (online), 2021, curated by Nina Colosi (to see/hear the work click here)