A sound-map mandala for AH! Opera/No-Opera created by composer David Rosenboom and poet Martine Bellen.
AH! is inspired by THE DIAMOND SUTRA and explores the nature of impermanence, perception, duality, space/time, and faith/compassion. Language and music emerge from a common origin in AH! as wordsoundswordssounds is being realized in performances and interactive mobile media designed to reposition the audience's experience to the creation of the opera. The performances at REDCAT (see sidebar link) will feature David Rosenboom (see sidebar link) and ten collaborating composer-performers: Ivan Carames Bohigas (Spain), Michael Foumai (US-Hawaii), Alex Kotch (US-North Carolina), Claudio Maldonado (Argentina-Patagonia),Vedran Mehinovic (Bosnia), Natalie Oram (UK), Doo Jin Park (Korea), Jeronimo Rachenberg (Mexico), Diana Syrse Valdes Rosado (Mexico), Xiaolang Zhou (China) and will be directed by renowned experimental theater and opera director Travis Preston (see sidebar link). The public will be invited to engage with the materials of AH! some weeks prior to, and after, the performances via a website and mobile phones. The presentations of AH! are made possible by the generous support of The Evelyn Sharp Foundation and Transatlantic Arts Consortium.
Passengers—Parasites
(sound of tuned dragonfly wings)
(short solo aria—with chorus)
The mother believes she awakens and her lovely daughter has disappeared. The mother has been watching a movie about a young girl with aubergine hair and round eyes. Parasitic bugs that have found solace in the skin of the girl replace her. Upon seeing the parasites, the mother falls into a deep weeping slumber and the bugs continue the mother’s dream. The bugs suppose the mother is dead, dreaming that her daughter is directing insects in a movie.
(line 1:) The mother is at the movies with secretions that dissemble when light’s switched on.
Mother dreaming a movie secretions of light
Parasites dissemble when light’s switched on becoming a daughter
(line 2:) Parasites have become the daughter, dreaming a movie of a keening mother.
Chorus: (the secretions that are raised from light, the secretions that are thoughts).
(continue solo aria—with chorus)
The viewer will open his eyes and go home
Chorus: (open his heart)—
turn on the light—
Chorus: (close his eyes)—
dream—
Chorus: (turn in sleep)—
(turning sleep, turning sleep)
become something other—a moth maybe, nothing more substantial than the filmic flame,
Chorus: gossamer,
a damselfly’s shimmering whirr.
(chorus—end section)
Chorus: Strangers in our body.
(slight pause)
Chorus: Passengers.
(slight pause)
Chorus: Parasites.
from AH! by Rosenboom/Bellen
