Shadow is a collection of interdisciplinary works surrounding the research and narrative qualities of shadow worlds and the characters who occupy them. Beginning in 2020 with research surrounding Polari, a criminal queer cant from the UK, the first opera Tip The Ivy follows five characters that traverse dimensions through the survival and recitation of this dead language. The two intermezzos, Paramour of the Whirlpool and Paraphrase of a Shadow, highlight tulpamancy and the talismanic qualities of the glove as a symbol of lostness.
Kompass (I,II,III), the second opera from this series, narratively follows the “nameless ghost”, a character created in collaboration with Bobbi Salvor Menuez as an anonymous composite ghost of research surrounding The Playhouse of Ridiculous Theater, in which several unnamed or pseudonym-dawning figures existed in and around the illusory, untamed world of the New York Underground theater and performance community of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
While in communication with my mentor Agosto Machado, keeper of the flame of the New York Underground and a crucial figure in the history and continuity of the theater scene, I learned about countless named and unnamed figures who created “the ensemble of life”. In Kompass, the nameless ghost ventures through a series of dialogical scenes with other figures, ghosts, and puppets.
Gasp!, the third opera of Shadow, takes the form of a mutable, roving theatrical music performance, utilizing a local mixed-skill ensemble in each city. Beginning with a seance conducted by a collection of Janus-esque spirit helpers (masks created by Nagi Gianni), the nameless ghost guides the ensemble into a collective spiritedness with the help of his friend Beatrice, who has found herself trapped inside the body of a marionette.