POT :: Plant Opera
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Plant Opera

Festival CoOperation

Archstoyania, Russia 26.07.2019

Second step - Opera with[for] plants.

The whole project development impulse was originally a commission for contemporary opera laboratory in Russia, that was taking place at large-scale art festival ARCHSTOYANIE (https://www.stoyanie.ru/) in July 2019.
Using the main dogmas of plant world and opera world we see them both (with the help of the second perspective) from new angles.

Playing on opera allusions there is a stage-platform for tree-performers, natural baroque-like theatre ( with trees as sustains and instead of painted faux landscape backdrop there is a real landscape depth). As an opera, each plant will be seen as a unique character, by their form, voice (sound texture, fre-quency range), and their behaviour/personality.Cautiously pre-selected plants are becoming the participants of plant opera, following the iconic dramaturgy rules: love couple - soprano (birch) and tenor (elm), choir (mushrooms cluster), suddenly and endlessly dying bass-baritone (fallen old birch tree that still has last chlorophyll, hence life signals).

The publicly “tortured” and “decapitated” flower loses his voice and only a human singer, plugged in the in-ears translates it for public. She is crying-like singing, interpreting the last lamento of this flower, that creates a tragic duet with last aria of the fallen tree.
Except that there is no death, there is only transfor-mation.

Performers with their voices, bodies adding new levels of translation: dialogue and duetting with plans, becoming their translators, re-identifying as a plants; they are becoming contaminants for spectators, helping in activation of the system and the subjects, adding the context.