Posts with tag Performance

New Opera Co just had the opening of ”Vi i villa”, a newopera where the group use the classical form of an opera and turn it into a modern drama. Is it possible to use an everyday, very basic and realistic, dialogue in an opera? How do you create a libretto, together in the ensemble, how do you act and how do you produce? The questions was a drive for New Opera Co to explore and start, as they describe it, a phase of research and collective process in terms of ideas, performance, text and music. The result is a beautiful and creative performance that shows a new form of expression and gives an idea of what a modern opera could be. The stage is simple, a rehearsing room with just black chairs and four glasses. Scenery is projected on the wall and the dialogue, sung by the actors and actresses, is about ordinary things in the relationship between two people.

The performance was built in quite an interesting process, where the group combined working together with the whole ensemble, included actors, director, technicians, musicians, dancers, with times of concentration where the composer have built the text and the music on his own. In between, the parts that was ready, was performed and showed in front of an audience. This gave the composer an idea of how the text needed to be built and the song had to be sung to work. It’s quite a similar process, and way of thinking, as the one described at Pixar Animation Studios, where the storyboard continuously was showed to an audience and reactions taken into account in the building of a film (look here to read about our visit to Pixar Animation Studios).

”Vi i villa” is performed at the performance stage Atalante in Göteborg. Also look at trailers at http://www.atalante.org/viivilla/.

The Belgian group of artists called Berlin has done a beautiful portrait of the small city of Bonanza in Colorado, USA. The former prosperous gold city in the mountains is now a sleepy town of seven year-round inhabitants. Five projectors, one for each of the inhabitants, show an hour of interviews and clips from everyday life. It goes slowly from the ideal place for the soul to intrigues between each and everyone. And they have hardly ever spoken to each other.

The performance is beautifully done, with the projectors and the small model of the city. The dramaturgy is clever and the result is a portrait of the city and it’s people from different angles and with only the voices from the inhabitants. It shows the possibility of the artistic competence of trusting the process rather than the goal. To arrange the process in such a way, that when putting the pieces together you put light on something bigger, not otherwise visible. In today’s discussion of the creative cities, transformation, urban challenges and intercultural dialogue, this artistic competency is both very important in understanding society and can be used as a tool for change.

Bonanza is shown at the Göteborg Dance and Theatre Festival, running from August 15-24, one of many interesting performances all over the city. Bonanza can also be seen at Youtube.