(photo: Dave Nickerson)
Are there any other kind, really? Ha! I bet that got your attention. Well, there aren't any naked nymphs here, not yet, anyway! But I spent this past weekend in Austin with Megan M. Reilly working on our installation/opera/new music piece Selkie Project. (Selkies are half-human half-seal creatures and there are oodles of great stories about them from Irish folk traditions). We’re mounting a work-progress as part of the curated exhibition, Idea of Mountains, at UT’s Creative Research Laboratory. We’re actually not sure what it will become, but we’ve got two actors involved, a pianist and dancer/choreographer, Carline Sutton Clark, plus I’m singing two world premier pieces on the program by composer’s Elliot Cooper Cole & James D. Norman. On January 23rd. Yikes! We’re actually really excited about the project and are thrilled to get a chance to workshop the piece, using design as the entry-point into the work.
I dashed home Sunday to play salonnière to an awesome house concert for composer Elliot Cooper Cole and his very cool avant/pop/chamber collective. They presented two original song cycles and an exciting solo for double bass. Too bad their harpist had the flu and couldn’t join us!
More Selke Project madness next weekend with Megan: paint, stencils, fabric, a music rehearsal, and rehearsal with the actors, and will the projectors be mounted? Got you curious, have I? I know I’m dying to see what it will become! ~ Misha
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A mythical half-seal, half-human creature bobs her beckoning head: seduction to dive below the waves…Selkie mythology revolves around creatures torn between lovers they take on land and their desire to return to the sea. Have you ever wanted something so much that returning to it is almost instinctual - is there anything or anyone that could make you just get up and leave to pursue it without even a thought to saying goodbye to your current life?
Divergence Vocal Theater collaborates to create cross-disciplinary installation environment for multimedia, performance, opera and new music-theater: Selkie Project: gestation, a work-in-progress. Voice performance, text, electronic sound design by Misha Penton; multimedia, lighting & theatrical design by Megan M. Reilly.
Performance January 23, 7pm: Misha Penton, mezzo soprano; Maimy Fong, piano; Steffanie Ngo-Hatchie, Chase Crossno, actors; Caroline Sutton Clark, dancer/choreography; Megan M. Reilly, lighting & media. Performance is a multi-arts work in progress, featuring the music of James D. Norman, Elliot Cooper Cole, Benjamin Britten and Charles Gounod.
Project Artistic Direction: Misha Penton & Megan M. Reilly.
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