What lies between opera and the choreographic? How can we reshape the structures for how we hear through space and visuals? What happens to our oldest stories when they are told through new voices?
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 coming soon 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.
‘‘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.’’
