Program Note

​

Madness is a social construct that has known many definitions through-out history. The concept of madness is unique in western medicine such that its very definition is depended upon politics and social norms. For instance, at a not so distant point in history, homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness, and not much before that, women who had a “tendency to cause trouble” were diagnosed with hysteria. 

The good news is that as time went by, history got rid of many "mental illnesses" that today we treat their very categorization as offensive and unethical. The bad news is that we also invented quite a few new mental disorders that didn’t “exist” even 20 years ago. 

And it’s not over. It’s not unlikely that our children’s children or their children will be born into a world where eating meat is as insane an act as cannibalism, or a world where any religious believer is considered delusional, or even a world where people value their physical assets so much that the very act of giving to charity is considered wildly deranged.  

The grey line of mental disease is a fascinating one. When does sadness turn into depression? Where does worry turn into anxiety? How does passion turn into obsession? And when does faith turn into delusion? 

Writing this piece has forced me to explore this grey line between sanity and madness within myself. To my dismay, I discovered that crossing this line (at least in one direction) is a lot easier than we dare to realize.

In this piece I seek to play with the grey line of our own perception.
In a sense, this is a tone poem. A poem written by the World Health Organization (WHO) titled “International Classification of Diseases (revision 10)” and within it, I focus on chapter 5: “Mental and behavioral disorders”.

This piece presents the listener with 3 case studies of 3 patients (movements), each with their own set of symptoms. Some of the symptoms may repeat for different patients, some may have different manifestations or different levels of severity.
Each of the patients has been diagnosed with at least one disorder described in chapter 5.