Hanuman's Leap

A 30-minute sung retelling from the Ramayana for eight voices and drums.

2013 · for 8 singers (SSAATBBB) and drums · 30'

Premiere — Roomful of Teeth · Princeton U · 2013-03-12

This story comes from the Ramayana, a 2,500-year-old epic poem from India. I read it in the summer of 2012, in the luminous prose translation by Ramesh Menon, and could hardly put it down. Its central hero, Rama, is both human and divine — a model of earthly virtue and an incarnation of Vishnu come to the world to battle evil. When his wife, Sita, is kidnapped by Ravana, prince of demons, he raises an army of vanaras — magical and sagacious monkeys — to find her. The greatest and most humble of these is Hanuman. His leap to the demon’s island Lanka forms the frame of my story, into which I have interpolated a second tale of his prodigious jumping ability from later in the epic.

Hanuman's Leap, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin Hanuman's Leap, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin Hanuman's Leap, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin Hanuman's Leap, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin

Hanuman's Leap at Salvage Vanguard Theater, Austin — photographs by Sara Erensoy

Epic poems are traditionally sung, but few traditions of live performance survived the twentieth century. It’s a challenging genre for the modern mind. Bards recite stories that can run for many nights: Manas, the national epic of Kyrgyzstan, is roughly half a million lines long, and the Tibetan epic of Gesar can be twice that. The poetry is sung in short, endlessly repeating phrases that articulate the meter rather than the action, so the surface, to our ears, is undramatic.

The drama, of course, is in the story, and I regret that I will never hear a traditional epic sung in a language I understand. English has none; we wrote ours down and forgot how to sing them long ago. I wanted to find my own way into that gap, and started writing lines and singing them until I had Hanuman’s Leap.

Read the full libretto →

A charismatic contemporary bard. Vivien Schweitzer , The New York Times , 2016-04-01

Listen / Watch

Press

A sophisticated hybrid of rap, drone, Indian music, and contemporary vocal techniques. Bruce Hodges , Musical America , 2016-04-06

Performances

37 performances since 2013

  • 2019-02-20 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 2018-10-05 Elliot Cole + Cisum Percussion Red Hook, Brooklyn
  • 2018-06-28 Elliot Cole + Kristen Klehr, Amanda Duncan, Jordan Cucuruto York Manor, Los Angeles
  • 2018-05-07 Elliot Cole + NYU Percussion Ensemble Frederick Loewe Theater, NYC
  • 2018-04-07 Elliot Cole + University of Western Washington Ensemble Northwest Percussion Festival, Salem, OR
  • 2018-04-05 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA
  • 2018-04-02 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble University of West Florida
  • 2018-03-04 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble Lawrence University, Appleton WI
  • 2018-02-02 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble UNC-Pembroke
  • 2018-01-14 Elliot Cole + beyond this point Emporium Arcade Bar, Chicago IL
  • 2018-01-13 Elliot Cole + Student Ensemble Waubonsie Valley High School, Aurora IL
  • 2017-12-07 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble Dixie State University
  • 2017-11-20 Elliot Cole + University Ensemble University of Akron, OH
  • 2017-01-15 Elliot Cole with Roomful of Teeth University of Northern Colorado
  • 2016-04-01 Elliot Cole and Roomful of Teeth and Tigue Park Avenue Armory, NYC
  • 2016-03-31 Elliot Cole and Roomful of Teeth and Tigue Park Avenue Armory, NYC
  • 2016-03-01 Elliot Cole and Mobius Percussion Princeton
  • 2015-09-19 Willo Collective Strange Beautiful Music Detroit
  • 2015-08-30 Elliot Cole and Kraken Quartet Salvage Vanguard, Austin TX
  • 2015-05-24 BLOW UP Roma Percussion No Go Festival, Rome
  • 2015-05-20 BLOW UP Roma Percussion Festival Le Forme Del Suono, Latina, Italy
  • 2015-03-17 Unknown performer Northern Illinois University
  • 2014-11-22 Kraken Quartet & nobrow.music.collective & Amy Garapic Joyful Noise, Indianapolis
  • 2014-06-04 Nief-norf Greenville SC
  • 2014-05-04 Roomful of Teeth 5 Boroughs Music Festival, Galapagos, Brooklyn - Premiere
  • 2014-04-11 with Sean Harvey trio Cheer Up Charlies, Austin TX
  • 2014-03-21 Yumi Tamashiro, Mika Godbole Small World, Princeton NJ
  • 2014-02-01 Willo Collective Jam Handy, Detroit
  • 2014-01-31 Willo Collective Yellow Barn, Ann Arbor
  • 2014-01-26 Owen Davis, Ryan Packard and Peter Ferry Constellation, Chicago
  • 2014-01-25 Square Peg Round Hole Rachel’s Cafe, Bloomington IN
  • 2014-01-24 nobrow.music.collective The Chameleon, Cincinnati
  • 2014-01-23 nobrow.music.collective The Union, Athens OH
  • 2013-12-08 Elliot Cole Spectrum
  • 2013-12-07 Elliot Cole Spectrum
  • 2013-06-13 Tigue Percussion Trio JACK Theater, Brooklyn
  • 2013-03-12 Roomful of Teeth Princeton U