Sasha Amaya

Choreo-Oper : Orfeo
Concept, Choreography, Direction, Musical Dramaturgy
Sasha Amaya

Performance
Sasha Amaya, TingAn Ying, Peyee Chen, Svetlana Mamrasheva, Boram Ahn

Costume
Sasha Amaya + Isabelle Edi

Light
Catalina Fernánez

Production
Tiphaine Carrère

Full credits below

Orfeo is Sasha Amaya‘s choreo-operatic research re-creation of Monteverdi’s 1607 opera based on the ancient Greek myth, through which she explores listening, proximity, power, and loss.

Using the interface between music and movement, and a re-casting of feminine-read bodies for all roles, Amaya explores what happens if we turn our attention from Orfeo to Euridice in this fabled tale. Balancing choreographic tools, musical expertise, and the relationality of bodies, the work juxtaposes tension and flow, restriction and agency, control and creativity.

‘‘So many of us grow up outside Europe, but are schooled in English and French, ballet and classical music. We excel at these things… and through our time spent with them, also learn to love them.

But what does it mean for us, as mirgrant and often racialized adult women, now living in Europe, to possess this embodied knowledge?

In addition to our own cultural knowledge, what do we do with this learnt technique? What do we make of these narratives and stories that remain so dominant (and still often prized in our home countries, to varying extents)? Do we reject, reuse, repurpose? What role does this knowledge of colonial art practices have in our contemporary artistic practice?

We are artists from Colombia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, and Russia, who now grapple with how to connect these artistic practices we learnt as children to our political beings as contemporary artists.’’

• Sasha Amaya

‘‘I don’t know if it’s the surprise, the vulnerability of the singers or simply that it’s a very good quality work that Sasha Amaya has crafted — but I’m entirely absorbed and then later I’m crying. The world is dramatically painful at the moment, and this opera allows me to weep for it… There is something about the incredible power in the voices of the three women singing on stage, with everything in their bodies held back and restrained that touches a deep nerve in me. There’s my 14-year-old self in the corner, crying over poetry and wondering how to make sense of the intensity of my becoming… Wow, hi opera — thanks for making me feel that.’’

• Nicola van Straaten, Stream Magazine

Choreo-Oper : Orfeo

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY, DIRECTION, MUSICAL DRAMATURGY
Sasha Amaya

PERFORMANCE
Sasha Amaya, TingAn Ying, Peyee Chen, Svetlana Mamrasheva, Boram Ahn

REPETITEUR
Boram Ahn

COSTUME
Sasha Amaya + Isabelle Edi
Dila Kaplan (Costume Assistance)
Sophie Becker (Corset Construction)

LIGHT
Catalina Fernánez

TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Haesoo Jung

OUTSIDE EYE + PROJECT SUPPORT
Dandan Liu

GRAPHICS
Sasha Amaya

PRODUCTION, CARE + FINANCES
Tiphaine Carrère (Production + Care)
Maria Kousi, Areli Moran (Production Support
Sasha Amaya (Fundraising)

RESEARCH
RESEARCH RESIDENCY: Trojan Nakade, Joss Reinecke, Sara Glojnaric, Avila Lorena Sarode, Hyuneum Kim, Malena Napal, Rike Zöllner, Elisabeth Leopold
RESEARCH PHASE CONTRIBUTIONS: Shanti Suki Osman (conversations), Fjóla Gautadottir (musical associations and suggestions), Sondos Shabayek (intimacy coordination), Chihiro Araki (studio)

THANKS to Falk Grever and Elisabeth Leopold, Leo Hofmann, Sara Glojnaric, Rike Zöllner, Nicole van Straaten, Jonathan Heilbron, and Brie Pasko

A PRODUCTION FROM SASHA AMAYA, FUNDED AND SUPPORTED BY Berlin Senatsverwaltung IMPACT Förderung (DE), Canada Council for the Arts (CA), and ROXY Birsfleden (CH) IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH Tanzfabrik Berlin