Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas
“… got my mind racing through the possibilities of performance without a performance space.”
—Zach Carstensen, The Gathering Note
“... maybe this is your weekend to doggie-paddle in water opera.”
—Katelyn Hackett, Seattlest
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas is a site-responsive performance for hiking opera singers and water percussionists. Byron Au Yong composed 64 musical miniatures with text from the Yijing 易經 (Book of Changes) reimagined by eight librettists. Kidnapping Water is available as live performances and a media installation.
Description
What happens after the water wars?
Will there be music?
There will be musicians.
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas fast-forwards to a future without opera houses. Singers and percussionists hike through forests and walk around cities searching for water. They perform to curious adults and children. Ducks gather. Human voices and splashing water cry out harder than the silent wisdom of hair turned white.
There is fear and longing in this scenario. Not a run-away-in-fear or humping-towards desire, more a pause-and-reflect terror and furrowed-brow hope that sends quiet shivers through the stomach. Breath senses water disappear. Ears caress aural mirages where the abundant rain of the present hides a future of burning salt.
—Byron Au Yong
Inspiration
One day while wandering around a supermarket, I was overcome in the bottled water section. I heard voices from Poland Spring and Fiji cry out, then realized that water was kidnapped and taken far from home.
Prompted by this experience, I created 64 musical miniatures for voice and percussion with eight librettists from different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds. While composing, I listened to, around, and within water.
The result—Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas—was performed in waterways throughout the Pacific Northwest as part of the 2008 King County Site-Specific Performance Network.
A Sound/Light Installation was created in collaboration with interactive media artist Randy Moss for the Jack Straw New Media Gallery in Seattle.
—Byron Au Yong
Installation Video Documentation
Byron Au Yong, music
Randy Moss, media artist
Audio Engineer Tom Stiles
Jack Straw New Media Gallery
September 12 – November 21, 2008
Seattle WA (2008)
Computer-controlled light and sound installation
18"h x 72"w x 72"d
Wood, salt, steel wire, LEDs, four-channel sound system, electronics, computer, custom software
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas is a study on the movement of water using four-channel acoustic recordings and 104 LED lights. Miniature spotlights produce animated light patterns, illuminating a circular reef of salt that appears to float in the darkened gallery.
Creative Team
Byron Au Yong, composer
Randy Moss, media installation artist
Pike Pin, project management
Tom Stiles and CJ Lazenby, audio engineers
Emily Carlsen, costume designer
Jean-Stephane and Eric Rockey, videographers
Wing Fong, logo/CD design
Librettists
Eugenie Chan
Bret Fetzer
Aaron Jafferis,
Archana Kumar
Carola Luther
Caroline Murphy
Vivian Umino
Edisa Weeks
Hiking Musicians
Betsy Baeskens, soprano
Emily Greenleaf, soprano
Josie Davis, mezzo-soprano
Jeremiah Oliver, tenor
David Stutz, bass-baritone
Stuart McLeod, percussion
Dean Moore, percussion
Benjamin Morrow, percussion
James Whetzel, voice, percussion
Details
Duration: variable (each bottled opera is 1 to 5 minutes)
Cast: hiking opera singers and water percussionists
Instrumentation
voices
water
Events
Seattle Symphony, 2011
Staging Sustainability Conference, Toronto, 2011
Town Hall Seattle, 2010
Jack Straw New Media Gallery, 2008
Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts, 2008
4Culture Site-Specific, 2008
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas was performed in 64 waterways as part of 4Culture's Site-Specific Performance Network and the Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts (2008). A Sound/Light Installation with four-channel audio and 104 animated LED lights was created in collaboration with artist Randy Moss for the Jack Straw New Media Gallery (2008). Excerpts performed at Town Hall Seattle (2010) and the Seattle Symphony Garden of Remembrance (2011).
Support
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas is thankful for support from Creative Capital’s Multi-Arts Production [MAP] Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation; 4Culture’s King County Site-Specific Performance Network; Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts; and Jack Straw Productions
Press Quotes
“... exquisite darkness... whimsical lines... captivating experience.”
—Christopher DeLaurenti, The Stranger
“Au Yong deploys the repetition in these travels as a way to create the physical musical rituals that fill Kidnapping Water.”
—Roxanne Ray, International Examiner (PDF)
In-depth preview by Gavin Borchert in the Seattle Weekly
More Press
Dry and Dark, Christopher DeLaurenti, The Stranger, Oct 07, 2008
Water Music, Gavin Borchert, Seattle Weekly, Aug 27, 2008
Sneak Peek, Mary Stevens Decker, Redmond Reporter, Aug 22, 2008
A Water Opera, Roxanne Ray, International Examiner, Aug 20, 2008
Sopping Wet Operas, Seattlest, Aug 15, 2008
Kidnapping Water in Seahurst Park, B*Town Blog, Aug 15, 2008
Kidnapping Water, Jeremy Richards, KUOW NPR, Aug 12, 2008
Miniature Operas in Water, Jen Graves, the Stranger Slog, Aug 11, 2008
Kidnapping Water, University Week, Aug 8-20, 2008
Photos
Installation sketches and construction on Flickr
Sammamish River Trail and University of Washington Bothell on Flickr
Special Thanks
Aldeburgh Music, Tophe Anderson, Betsey Baeskens, Steven Berardelli, Sarah Lin Bhatia, Moira Brennan, Donald Brinkman, Shelley Brittingham, Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts, Bruce Burgett, Burien Parks, City of Auburn, City of Bellevue Parks & Community Services, City of Federal Way, City of Redmond, City of Renton, David Collins, Kelly Cooper-Kordylewski, Michelle Cruver, Des Moines Parks, Denise DeSpirito, Van Diep, Amy Dukes, Sara Edwards, Mary Faber, Garrett Fisher, Nancy Frey, Levi Fuller, Tony Guerrero, Jennifer Davis Hayes, Kevin Higa, Gina Kallman, Ben Kasulke, Gabe Kean, Kubota Gardens, Issaquah Arts Commission, Daniel Alexander Jones, King County Library System, Jesse Lackey, Amy Lambert, Loreen Lee, Nic Lind, Rachel Lissman, Susan Moss, Lisa Olason, Libby Palmer, Jerri Plumridge, Jarrad Powell, Joan Rabinowitz, Mark Radonich, Charlie Rathbun, Mary Rectra, Bob Redmond, Daphne Robinson, Laurie Rose, Sammamish Arts Commission, Frank Saxe, June Sekiguchi, Nelly and Fred Schaffner, Deborah Schneider, Shoreline-Lake Forest Park Arts Council, Sign*A*Rama Santa Monica, SouthEast Effective Development, Betsy Udesen, UW Bothell Facility Services Staff, Samuel Vachon, Paige Weinheimer, Elaine Wetterauer, Gary Williams, Mary Yelanjian