Pinnacle - A One Act, Massively Participatory Opera

The participatory opera project is such an interesting effort it deserves a blog entry of its own. The convergence of several completely separate initiatives, three under my direct purview and one from another team, the project integrates these into one unifying initiative. Hence, over the past five years, in addition to my ongoing research at the intersection of the geomatics and rehabilitation sciences, on the one hand, and performance and media arts on the other, I have undertaken an ambitious writing effort as well as developed and brought to market two fashion collections based on my own designs.

The writing project consists of developing a "vast narrative" of some 2500 pages, involving hundreds of characters, planets, and habitats and more than 250 years of "future history) - about 65% of this project has been completed. The story is inspired by several of the Greek myths - the stories of Orestes and Elektra (immortalized in Euripedes' Orestia), of Orpheus and Eurydice, of Ulysses and Penelope, and of Jason, Medea and the Argonauts are the main narratives involved. The opera focusses on the first 100 pages of this story, essentially the youth of its central character, Oreph Sodenheim (based on both Orestes and Orpheus).

In addition to the scenario (from which the opera's libretto is derived), we propose to provide opportunities for large sectors of the public to participate both in the development of the opera and in its final delivery on stage, via an online web access we will create for the project. Opportunities to influence the scenario, the music, the choreography and parts of the staging will be provided. In addition, we are developing a smart garment that will incorporate movement sensors and which will serve as a specialized interface for the opera development - the garment will be provided to targeted audience members. The project involves several researcher-artists from Université Laval's Department of Music (Jocelyne Kiss, Serge Lacasse, Sophie Stévance) as well as collaborators from outside the university. An innovate project which will act as a showcase for innovation for related research at Laval University.