Screenings of opera and music theater composed by women
Hamilton Fish Public Library, Community Room
Judith Sainte Croix
Sat. December 3 at 2pm
Rachel Mason
Screening: ALIEN SUNS
XSb-U-Ghl-Xia-:+*-Xagh-skavovsky (X1) has returned after 4000 years to a bitter and emboldened lover, XAHYA -330 -PLAXIS- PTOTOPHALIS (X2) who waited through thousands of millennia of changing civilizations and geo-continental transformations desperately hoping that his longtime soul mate might return- reborn into a species compatible with his own.
X1 is afflicted with a rapid degenerating illness which causes him to age a full 100 years in the span of 5 and then die- only to be reborn anew every 5 years, while X2 has the reverse illness. He can never die. (No matter how hard he tries) Their differences, and the painful past experiences have not, however, done anything to reduce the great passion that they two have for one another.
Featuring original music, the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe and performances by
Chris Carlone (Borts Minorts) - X1
Stu Watson (No Sky God) - X2
Phillip Burch - Bells
Mara Mayer - Bass Clarinet
Jay Pluck - Grand Piano
Rachel Mason - Vocals
Valerie Kuehne (Dream Zoo) - Cello
Michael Durek (PAS/CloudCloud) - Theramin
Haylee Nichele - Dance
David Smith (Doom Trumpet) - Harmonica
Adrienne Anemone - Ukulele
Stage props by Tim Dowse
Costumes by Heather Quesada and Rachel Mason
LIVE PERFORMANCE: songs from Rachel Mason’s work in progress The Lives of Hamilton Fish.
Elodie Lauten
Sat. January 14, 2012 at 2pm
Screening premiere of The Death of Don Juan
Music, libretto and video imagery by Elodie Lauten
Presented by Theater for the New City, Crystal Field, Exec. Director
Directed by Robert Lawson and Henry Akona
Video documentation by Joe Bly
Performed by:
Douglas McDonnell: Don Juan
Alisha Desai: Death as a Shadow
Arianna Armon: Death as a Lover
Mary Hurlbut: Death as a Spirit
Courteney Symonds: Death as a Woman
Jonathan Hirschman: Electric Guitar
Elodie Lauten: Sythesizer and Electronic Orchestra
Themes
The theme of the piece is a reinterpretation of the myth – a Spanish legend that has fascinated poets and composers for centuries – in a timeless and genderless framework, looking at the Don Juan archetype from the point of view of a modern woman. In this piece, Don Juan is a revolutionary anti-hero seeking freedom from social rules, love for its own sake, adventure. He is also selfish, ruthless, sarcastic, and devoid of ethics or spiritual values, but he evolves. A timeless Don Juan reborn now has to face the fact that women have acquired independence and power as equals of men, and the different phases of his transformation are the action of the opera - seduction, love, despair, insanity, enlightenment. There is something compelling about Don Juan as a character: he has courage, passion, and above all, he is thoroughly human, because he is after love and freedom. Something about him resonates in us, both women and men, and we cannot bring ourselves to hate him. The entire opera happens within Don Juan’s mind and soul as he is about to die, when he comes to terms with the true meaning of love, within a subtext of broader concerns, psychological (the nature of seduction and passion), social and political (gender typification, the emancipation and social evolution of women and men) and spiritual (God, enlightenment, compassion, forgiveness). His death is not at all sad, but transformative and explosive, a new beginning.
The storyline follows the cathartic experience of Don Juan facing Death not as the Grim Reaper, but as a haunting by multiple female spirits who remind him of the women in his life. In Don Juan Reflects, drunk, he boasts of his conquests but soon begins to doubt himself and lingers on the anxious thought of being replaceable. In Vision, at the moment of death, he sees his life unfold before his eyes. In Death as a Shadow, surrounded by powerful Death multiples he is at once frightened and seduced. He duets tenderly with Death, but his triumph becomes a rant and the duet becomes a Duel. In Despair, he feels the pain of unrequited love, having failed to seduce Death, while Death multiples drive him to Insanity. In that mad moment of surrender, he loses his ego-self, which becomes his path to Enlightenment, and he makes his final Exit, followed by the Kyrie where he is ultimately forgiven.
Contact: elauten@yahoo.com