Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Actor > K > Christopher Knowles

Profile of Christopher Knowles on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Christopher Knowles  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 4th May 1959
   
Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York, USA
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Christopher Knowles (born 1954) is a U.S. poet who has autism. In 1973, his poetry was discovered by Robert Wilson and used for the avant-garde minimalist Philip Glass opera Einstein on the Beach. At that time, Knowles was 19 and attending a special school in upstate New York. Wilson summarized the discovery this way in the extended notes to the Tomato Records release of Einstein on the Beach:

In early 1973 a man named George Klauber, who had been one of my professors at Pratt Institute, gave me an audio tape he thought might interest me. At the time I was beginning work on a theatre piece called The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin. . . . I was fascinated. The tape was entitled 'Emily Likes the TV.' On it a young man's voice spoke continuously creating repetitions and variations on phrases about Emily watching the TV. I began to realize that the words flowed to a patterned rhythm whose logic was self-supporting. It was a piece coded much like music. Like a cantata or fugue it worked with conjugations of thoughts repeated in variations; these governed by classical constructions and a pervasive sense of humor. The effect was at once inspiring and charming. I was impressed and called George to ask who had made the tape. . . . It was arranged that Chris could come and live with me. We became collaborators and friends. He co-authored a show called A Letter for Queen Victoria and performed it throughout Europe and New York. In subsequent years we continued to work together. Chris would co-author pieces and his texts would appear in works such as the opera Einstein on the Beach… I am forever fascinated by the decisions Chris is able to make while maintaining control over a continuous and elegant line. He has a unique ability to create a language that's immediately discernable. Yet once he has invented his verbal or visual language, he destroys the code to begin anew. His art holds the excitement of molecular reaction. His product is constantly genuine and always a reflection of his own imagination, humor and good will.

Aside from the major success of Einstein on the Beach, Knowles mounted shows in the 1970s. In 1978, the American poet John Ashberry wrote in New York Magazine (of a volume of Knowles's poetry):

"Christopher has the ability to conceive of his works in minute detail before executing them. There is nothing accidental in the typed designs and word lists; they fill their preordained places as accurately as though they had spilled out of a computer. This pure conceptualism, which others have merely approximated using mechanical aids, is one reason that so many young artists have been drawn to Christopher's work."

Knowles has produced very little solo work. Typings (a volume of poetry) received good notices. Otherwise, he has continued to collaborate with Robert Wilson, and Wilson has used Knowles's texts in many of his operas.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Christopher Knowles