An opera-novel by Robert Ashley
Music and Libretto by Robert Ashley
Orchestra composed by Tom Hamilton
Choreographed by Steve Paxton
Light Design by David Moodey
Performed by Steve Paxton, Maura Gahan and Jurij Konjar
Sound design and live mix by Tom Hamilton
At the Kitchen: January 28, 29 and 30; February 4, 5 and 6, 2016.
QUICKSAND is an opera for music, dance and light composed from a novel of the same name (released in 2011 by Burning Books) by the late Robert Ashley. Ashley asked Steve Paxton to create choreography for the opera, David Moodey to create a light environment and Tom Hamilton to compose the electronic orchestra. The singing of the text by Robert Ashley himself has been elaborately edited for rhythm in collaboration with Tom Hamilton. Each act has 16 scenes, each scene identified by a specific chord/harmony. Thus, there are 48 scenes and harmonies in the three acts of the opera. Paxton and Moodey will each compose 16 scenes (16 dance/16 light), each scene based on the image evoked by any scene in the opera. The resultant 32 separate and movable scenes of choreography and lighting can be rearranged in any way or order during the 48 musical scenes opera.
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The story:
A composer, who travels internationally because of his musical activities, has been coerced by some U.S. Government Agency ("The Company") to serve as a low level information "courier" (a low-level spy) wherever he goes. Now, he takes a vacation sightseeing tour with a small group of Americans, including his wife, to an unnamed country in South East Asia, which is culturally beautiful and exotic, but is run by a vicious military dictatorship. During the tour he becomes involved, because of his immediate and deep friendship with two tour-guides -- and their trust in him -- with plans to overthrow the dictatorship. The tour-guides are leaders of a nationwide group of people who have the overthrow planned for a day when, coincidentally, he is to be there. The tour-guides arrange for him to be separated from the tour group (so that the group, including his wife, gets home safely.) Then, he gets involved ever more deeply with the overthrow plans. The dictatorship has learned of his involvement, so there is a constant threat to his life. "The Company," unhappy to learn of his involvement, sends four American mercenaries to protect him and to protect "American interests." The composer and the mercenaries become close friends and together get emotionally involved with the overthrow plans. In fact, they become the main instruments of the overthrow operation, which involves the capture and imprisonment of the leaders of the dictatorship and the destruction of the torture operation by which the dictatorship maintains its power. The overthrow is a complete success, thanks to the professional skills of the mercenaries. The opera ends with a love letter of a sort from one of the tour-guides, who writes with affection of the mercenaries and of the composer who have, for the moment, brought freedom to her country.
For More Information:
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