MelanchoLalaland Transmedia Opera and A Proper Marriage
Tuesday, 02/03/2015 – 07:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Miami Light Project Inc.
404 Northwest 26th Street,
Miami, Florida 33127
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MELANCHOLALALAND

It’s the 21st century, and time to re-invent opera, but in a way that’s more fun, less pretentious, and a little messed up.

MelanchoLalaland™—with music by composer and Florida Atlantic University professor Joey Bargsten and libretto by writer Thea Zimmer—accomplishes this by fusing traditional elements of opera, theater, and dance with new and experimental visual media forms, all set to an electronic music score. MelanchoLalaland™ tells the dark tragi-comic story of three artist/engineers who design mind-altering experiences, enhanced by self-pleasuring technologies and a variety of brain chemicals. They deal with disgruntled employees, corporate takeovers, dissatisfied girlfriends, and cheesy space-aliens.

A PROPER MARRIAGE

Concept / Choreography: Pioneer Winter

A Proper Marriage is a speculative piece that comments on the perceived co-dependence of music and movement, especially live music with dance–underlying properties of a dancer’s dependence on composition, and the musician’s own foresight to create action from sound. Sheet music is attached to the backs of dancers, and the musicians follow the dancer in order to read the music and maintain the melody. Irony rests in the notion that if the dancer moves too quickly and the musician cannot keep up, the music will falter and the dancer’s own rhythm will stop.

Pioneer Winter is a Miami-native choreographer, dancer, and filmmaker of Pioneer Winter / Collective. He is co-director of RIFT Blackbox and the curator of transmedia performances for FilmGate Interactive Media Conference. Winter also directs Project LEAP (Living Equality through Arts and Performance), a free dance and creative communication program for LGBTQ teens that focuses on teaching how to use the arts for activism and social change. He was recently awarded the 2014-2015 Miami Choreographer’s Fellowship, and is on faculty of the FIU Honors College. His project Grass Stains was also recently awarded a Knight Arts Challenge Grant.