ORPHEUS & EURYDICE
Produced by Simon Kim, Mark Yim, and Lembit Beecher. This is the fifth production in five years for IKstudio and the Immersive Kinematics Lab.
For this collaboration with Opera Philadelphia composer-in-residence, the Curtis Insititue of Music, and ModLab at the Slought Foundation, the design of theatrical agents and instruments was selected as the domain of exploration.
Architecture and theater have had a long-standing relationship, from Palladio's designs for the Teatro Olimpico to Modernist Bauhaus productions and, more recently, the contemporary work of Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
For these theatrical productions, architecture and dramaturgy is tethered to material transformations over time and sound. At Slought, these transformations are activated by new technologies and new media in response to opera and audience. The movement of the human performers, and the music they produce, is echoed in the activation of sound and movement in the devices and structures on stage.
As a pilot project with Opera Philadelphia, and with their composer-in-residence Lembit Beecher, a retelling of the classic Orpheus and Eurydice was constructed. The characters of the fated lovers were offset by the nonhuman performances of bespoke instruments and devices. Custom-designed stage pieces of the venomous snake, a mechatronic death shroud, five polygonal furies to be tamed, and the underworld of nonnewtonian fluid were prototyped and presented at the Slought Foundation.
Photography, videography by Kordae Henry, Andrew Gardner.