beg: a question in progress, 2001, multimedia performance

beg - a question in progress, 2001, was a performance work created by Lynn Book for 13 performers and guest artist Diane Torr (Drag King) following 9/11 in New York City. Dixon Place director, Ellie Covan, wanted to quickly stage artist responses to the events of September 11, 2001 and invited Book to be part of the series staged in an enormous space called C.U.A.N.D.O. overlooking Houston Street, facing downtown Manhattan. The work was primarily for voice and movement with hand held lighting instruments and drew from text written by Book, some of which she wrote on September 10. By 2003 key parts were incorporated into a text-score called “blink” that Book performed with drummer Kevin Norton, Roulette, 2003. Book composed choral vocal elements for “beg…” that drew from her exploratory work with student-participants in Voicelab, Book’s educational and cultural center that she founded in 1999 and ran until 2005.