Saturday, March 17, 2012

Video Design for Long Beach Opera


Tonight is the closing of a pair of Surrealist operas, TEARS OF A KNIFE (that's the picture) and THE BREASTS OF TIRESIAS: another fun collaboration with Ken Roht.

Interesting contrast here: TEARS had a single, slow cue...a pair of dying roses. BREASTS was an almost endless parade of gags and buttons and craziness...marching storks and pearly gates and 50's appliances and so on.

These two pieces are probably more craft than art for me, but so much fun nonetheless! The crazy, kitchen sink design of BREASTS had me pulling stuff out of mid-air. Those roses in TEARS were really lovely...but some of the BREASTS cues were among the most, well, ugly stuff I've ever done (see below).
Mark Swed in the times wrote a review that couldn't be bothered to engage with anything aside from what you'd see in a chamber version of these pieces...this one, on the other hand, is a little more interesting:
Surrealism or Bust

On the craft side: with the help of Chet Leonard we managed to run this show out of QLab...but I'm thinking I would like to try Isadora or even Watchout (given the budget). Next up will be some experiments with Isadora and a new Cannon I just bought.