| Guerilla Opera and Urban Jazz Dance Company | ||
| present the world premiere of | ||
Ululations and Gurgles of the Invisible |
||
| composed by Elisabet Curbelo | ||
| choreographed by Antoine Hunter, PurpleFireCrow | ||
|
|
||
| with | ||
|
Danielle Silk (UJDC) |
Zahna Simon (UJDC) Angela Yam |
Mike Williams |
| Projections & Production Design | Lighting & Production Design | Costume Design |
| Daniel B. Chapman | Keithlyn B. Parkman | Kaylee Lynora Silcocks |
| Associate Projections & Lighting Design | Stage Manager | Accessibility |
| Eliseo Aragon | Liz Diamond | Think Outside the Vox |
Follow Us:
Dear friends,
It is my honor to welcome you to the world premiere of Ululations and Gurgles of the Invisible. This is Guerilla Opera’s most ambitious work yet, and dare I say, one of the most daring works of opera ever created, as it interrogates the very essence of the art form itself.
Here is what you are about to experience:
Ululations is a four-movement opera inspired by two poems by Federico García Lorca, the Surrealist Spanish poet (you can read them below). There are seven performers: three musicians (soprano, pianist, percussionist) and four dancers from Urban Jazz Dance Company, a company known for its work with Deaf, disabled, and human diversity in all its forms. These movement artists are integral to the soundscape, wearing motion-sensor bracelets that trigger imagery and sound as they perform. The musicians don’t just play their instruments; every performer will sign in American Sign Language (ASL), the common language of this opera. Yes, this is an opera in ASL.
For some of us, opera is a stirring melody, or a storyline with heroes and lovers. For others, this may be your first time experiencing opera. We invite you to immerse yourself and get lost in the sound, the movement, and the visuals. For the production, we are releasing the pressure to understand/to get it. Welcome to experimental opera. Together, let's experience and explore with our breath, our guts, our souls. I believe, if you lead with those and let it happen, you will discover moments of exquisite, sublime beauty.
We are all here because of Elisabet Curbelo, the composer of Ululations. Elisabet was a grad student at UC San Diego, when she found herself sharing an office with ASL instructors. This chance encounter led her to question, does music have to be something you hear? “What if gestures could be music? What if movement could tell a story without sound?”
Enter from stage left (coast), Urban Jazz Dance Company, the San Francisco-based troupe of Deaf and hearing dancers. They have been the ideal partners to both Guerilla Opera and Elisabet as we have come together to devise this work. For nearly twenty years, UJDC has not only been telling stories, shifting narratives and promoting awareness of Deaf culture and access from lived Deaf and Disabled experiences through movement, their art has been a beacon for all of us who are called to resist the artificial barriers that keep us divided as a people and from reaching our full potential as individuals. Guerilla Opera is humbled and grateful for their partnership.
Finally, we are indebted to our accessibility partners at Think Outside the Vox. VOX is an arts accessibility organization that amplifies and empowers Deaf, Blind and disabled expertise and performance in the arts and cultural spaces through community-centered services, education, mentorship and modeling. Beyond the ASL interpretation services that made our work with UJDC possible, they deepened our understanding of Deaf culture and accessibility that will impact all of our work moving forward.
In these dark times, it means a lot to us that you showed up today. Enjoy the show.
Yooree Losordo
Interim Executive Director
Accessibility Features
The performance on Sunday, September 21st at 3pm will be Audio Described. There is a Tactile Tour at 2:15pm.
ASL interpreters will be present and all performers will sign during the show. English captions of what is signed will be projected on the screen.
Audio Description (AD) is a visually crafted, strategically timed live narration of the visual elements of a show. The AD pre-show and in-show includes descriptions of dancers and their costumes, choreography and expressions, projections, and the ASL signs and gestures, allowing Blind and Low-Vision communities to engage with this Deaf-centered production. Access the Audio Description preshow recording and transcript.
Movements
Movement 1: The Silent Boy
The Silent Boy searches for his voice.
Movement 2: Gurgles
The Guiding Voice dances with the High, Middle, and Low voices under the water.
Movement 3: The Betrothal
The Queen of Crickets, advised by The Shadow, considers a marriage proposal from The King of Crickets. The wedding ring contains the voice of The Silent Boy, her future child.
Movement 4: The Ring
The ring shines underwater, filled with all the voices it holds.
Symbolism:
- The Silent Boy: The imaginary child of the Queen of Crickets, an oppressed individual who worries about his identity and future.
- Water: A tool that could be used to silence voices, but here serves as a means to express identities beneath the surface.
- Cricket: The oppressor.
- The Guiding Voice: A force that helps everyone discover their identity.
- The High, Middle, and Low Voices: Represent different facets of identity.
- The Ring and Marriage: Represents tradition and established social norms.
- The Queen of Crickets: A proposed wife for the King of Crickets, who stands against oppression.
Cast
Creative Team
Elisabet Curbelo
Antoine Hunter
Daniel B. Chapman
Keithlyn B Parkman
Liz Diamond
Kaylee Lynora Silcocks
Eliseo Aragon
Think Outside the Vox
Olivia Reinebach
Kwaku Darko
Meet the Company
Mike Williams
Hailed by The Boston Globe as “one of the city's best percussionists,” Mike Williams has performed throughout North America and Europe. An advocate for contemporary music, he is a founding artist and the ensemble director of Guerilla Opera, having serving as artistic director for eleven seasons. Williams has worked with many of the leading composers of our time including Pierluigi Billone, Michael Finnissy, Philippe Leroux, Salvatore Sciarrino, Gunther Schuller, and Roger Reynolds among many others. He was a fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center and has performed at festivals including the Festival de Mexico, Gaudeamus Music Week, the Internacional Cervantino Festival, Monadnock Music, the Gaida Festival in Vilnius, Lithuania, and SICPP at New England Conservatory. As an orchestral musician, he performs with numerous groups including The Boston Pops, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Portland Symphony, Springfield Symphony, among many others. Williams studied at Boston Conservatory, winning top prize in the concerto competition, and the Amsterdam Conservatory performing regularly with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra under Peter Eötvös. Williams serves on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
Zahna Simon
A San Francisco native and Deaf from birth, Zahna Simon (Principal Dancer/“The Guiding Light”) is honored Changemaker of the year 2018 for San Francisco Live Oak School where she is a former alumni. She is a professional dancer, choreographer, chemist, avid health nutritionist, researcher, Deaf advocate and access consultant. She trained at San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA) with Elvia Marta, City Ballet School, Academy of Ballet and Alonzo King’s LINES Pre-Professional Programs. Simon holds a BS/BFA in Chemistry and Dance at UCI where she worked with fellow peers and graduate students and trained with distinguished faculty such as Lisa Naugle, David Allan and Donald McKayle.
A former chemist by day at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and dancer by night for various dance companies in San Diego, Simon is Assistant Director for Urban Jazz Dance Company, Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival (BAIDDF) and works full time at a small Fiduciary Office. She performed with Kim Epifano, SF/SD Trolley Dances, Alameda Island City Waterways, Man Dance Company, and more.
She has been featured in KPBS TV, CBS Bay Sunday, Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher Magazine and Ikouii Creative’s Book, IN THE STUDIO, published on Stance on Dance and was a Deaf Editor for Sins Invalid Disability Justice Primer. She is on the Advisory Council for SF Disability Cultural Center, production team for Signing Animation, involved in Dance/USA’s Deaf and Disability Affinity Group, 2023 UCLA Dancing Disability Lab and peer reader for 2022 Dance/USA’s fellowship. In 2024, she received the Golden Heart Award for all her work and contributions to the Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival. She has also performed with Kim Epifano, San Francisco Trolley Dances, Alameda Island City Waterways, Man Dance Company, Abilities Dance Boston and more. She has been dancing with Urban Jazz Dance Company since 2014.
Yoko Hagino
Yoko Hagino is an accomplished soloist and chamber pianist. She is a pianist who is confident and energetic, as noted by the Boston Globe – Yoko has received many prizes including All-Japan Mozart Competition, and Steinway Music Society Piano Competition. Yoko received her Bachelor's and her Master's degrees with honors from Tokyo National University. She earned an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Victor Rosenbaum and won the school’s concerto competition. She also completed a Performance Diploma at The Boston Conservatory, where she was a student of Michael Lewin and received the Churchill Scholarship. She has appeared in contemporary music scenes frequently, performed with sound icon, Ludovico Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Guerilla Opera.
Angela Yam
Praised as “radiant” by the Boston Globe, Angela Yam (Soprano/“The Queen of Crickets”) is renowned for her impeccable musicianship and fierce stage presence. She regularly performs with Boston Baroque, Heartbeat Opera, Opera Parallèle, and Boston Lyric Opera. She also performs early music and musical theater, and her BLO debut as Ismene in Mozart’s Mitridate was hailed “a sweetly poisonous, scene-stealing schemer with a sultry sparkle in her voice,” awarded the 2024 Best Breakout Performance in a Supporting Role by the Boston Globe, and featured on the cover of Opera Magazine.
An enthusiastic new music collaborator, Angela has premiered several new operas including as Orsia in Hanlon’s The Pigeon Keeper with Opera Parallèle, Mumei in Oh’s The Emissary with Opera Parallèle, Siren 1 in Ludwig-Leone’s The Night Falls (BalletCollective), covering Agave in John Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries (Santa Fe Opera) and the Bird in Jones & Tinley’s ICELAND (Overtone Industries), a role for which she was described as “stellar…a Puccini-esque soprano with incredible highs.
Paunika Jones
Paunika Jones was born and raised in Miami, FL, and is an alumna of New World School of the Arts. After graduating, she began her dance career at Dance Theatre of Harlem under the direction of the late Arthur Mitchell, where she ascended the ranks from Dancing through Barriers Ensemble®️ training program to Principal Dancer. From there, she worked in various ballet, contemporary and dance theatre companies nationally and internationally, such as Dance Theatre of Harlem, Collage Dance Collective, Oakland Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Noir, DEMA, Urban Jazz Dance Company, Brooklyn Ballet, Sign Dance Collective and Columbia City Ballet. She has been dancing with Urban Jazz Dance Company since 2015.
Kelly Garrett
Kelly Garrett joined the Urban Jazz Dance Company in 2019, with her debut performance in Deaf’s Imprisoned. Kelly’s love of dance began as a child in ballet class and continued to expand once exposed to Jazz and Hip-Hop. In 2003, she performed in the Super Bowl XXXVII pre-game & halftime shows in her hometown of San Diego. She then went on to perform in productions organized by the San Diego Community College, before transferring to SFSU and starting her career in nonprofits. In her free time, Kelly is an avid reader and moviegoer. She enjoys exploring San Francisco on-foot, puppy sightings, and dancing with the Urban Jazz Dance Company.
Danielle Silk
Danielle Silk lives at the intersections of white Deaf, disabled, queer, Jewish, Mad, and femme. She coordinates a Deaf youth service program by day and works as dancer, artist, and access worker by night. She grew up in a poor and working class interfaith family on Pomo, Graton-Ranchera, and Coastal Miwok land all over Sonoma County. She is currently a settler on unceded Ohlone Land in Oakland, California where she dances with Urban Jazz Dance Company and creates accessible art media. She holds a BA in English Creative Writing from Mills College and an MA in Deaf Education from Gallaudet University. She has been dancing with Urban Jazz Dance Company since 2018.
Elisabet Curbelo
Elisabet Curbelo is a multifaceted artist, leader, technologist and educator from the Canary Islands. She holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from UC San Diego. Throughout her career, Elisabet’s work and dedication have been valued by diverse institutions, as she has been awarded numerous grants, prizes, and commissions. Her pieces have been performed worldwide. Her creative research focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration, the use of sensors to control electronics with movement, EcoAcoustics, and extended vocal techniques based on her study of West Asian music and culture. Mainly Elisabet is interested in working on artistic projects that promote diversity and inclusion, and inspire social change.
Curbelo is an Associate Professor of Electroacoustic Composition and Music Theory at the University of Utah. She is also Director of the University of Utah Electroacoustic Ensemble and co-founder of Artivism4Earth. Learn more at elisabetcurbelo.com.
Antoine Hunter
Oakland native, Antoine Hunter aka PurpleFireCrow is an award-winning internationally known Black, Indigenous, Deaf, Disabled, choreographer, dancer, actor, instructor, speaker, producer and Deaf advocate. PurpleFireCrow creates opportunities for Disabled, Deaf and hearing artists, produces Deaf-friendly events, and founded the Urban Jazz Dance Company in 2007 and Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival in 2013. Awards include the 2023 Dance Magazine Award, 2022 Disability Futures Fellowship, 2021 Dance Teacher Award, 2019 Disability Changemaker, 2019 National Dance/USA fellowship recognized by the Mayor of Oakland, 2018 inaugural Jeanette Lomujo Bremond Humanity Arts Award and 2017 Isadora Duncan (Izzie) for BAIDDF.
Hunter’s work has been performed globally and he has lectured across the U.S. including at Kennedy Center’s VSA, Harvard and Duke University, and the National Assembly of State Arts as an ambassador for social change. Hunter utilizes his company’s artistic talents to engage with audiences, empower Deaf and disabled communities, and advocate for human rights and access, working to end discrimination and prejudice.
Hunter’s shoe company DropLabs and Susan Paley released an innovative haptic product to help people feel music. Hunter curated 2021 Bay Area Deaf Arts at SOMArts, is a 2021 YBCA 100 honoree, is on the production team of Signing Animation actively working on inclusive films and serves on the boards of Dance/USA, BABDA, Museum of Dance and councils for CalArts Alumnx and Intrinsic Arts.
In response to Covid-19 in July 2020, Hunter founded #DeafWoke, an online talk show that amplifies BIPOC Deaf and Disabled stories as a force for cultural change. Www.realurbanjazzdance.com
Daniel B. Chapman
Daniel B. Chapman is a lighting and projection designer for live entertainment. He is a member of United Scenic Artists (Lighting Design and Projection Design) and, in addition to design, he has worked extensively as a production manager and technical director. He is the author of Motion (http://cue.lighting) and Light Assistant (http://lightassistant.com).
His recent design credits include:
Opera Santa Barbara for Zorro, Carmen, Madama Butterfly. New York: On the Verge, Restoration Comedy, Construction of the Human Heart, (The Acting Company) Of Mice and Men, Damascus; Summer Theater of New Canaan: West Side Story, Legally Blonde, Hairspray, Twelfth Night; Guerilla Opera: Ululations and the Gurgles of the Unknown, Beowulf, Troubled Water, Pedr Solis, No Exit; Opera Southwest: Carmen, Before Night Falls, Zorro, Frida, Pelléas et Mélisande, L'inganno felice, Ali Baba, Norma, Bless Me Ultima, Guillaume Tell, Pagliacci, Tancredi, Il Turco in Italia, Aida, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, Il barbiere di Siviglia; Ash Lawn Opera: Susannah; Chicago: Cymbeline, Lifeboat, The Snow Queen; New Mexico Ballet: Alice in Wonderland, Phantom of the Opera, Aladdin, The Wizard of Oz;
Keithlyn B Parkman
Keithlyn B. Parkman graduated from the Boston University College of Fine Arts with a BFA in Lighting Design. During her time at BU, Keithlyn was brought on to Assistant Stage Manage Guerilla Opera’s Giver of Light in 2013 and has spent the last 12 years participating in over 20 GO productions in various design and technical roles - even performing once as herself in Dreamwalker Live. When not shipping up to Boston, Keithlyn, a born and raised New Yorker, works in various high schools across NYC, mentoring young theater makers who are pursuing their own technical and design dreams.
Liz Diamond
Liz Diamond (they/them/theirs) is a Boston-based Theater artist whose passion for dynamic storytelling drives their artistic endeavours. Recent credits include Director of The Gospel According to Susan by Jo Michael Rezes (PDV Fringe), Assistant Stage Manager for In The Space Between by Victoria Awkward (The Theater Offensive), Stage Manager for S P A C E By L M Feldman (Central Square Theater*), and Co-Facilitator of Let’s Misbehave by Lawrence Gullo (Pansy Productions). They are delighted to finally be working with Guerilla Opera and especially want to thank their roommate, Jolie, for connecting them.
Kaylee Lynora Silcocks
Kaylee Lynora-Silcocks earned her BFA in Costume Technology from Texas State University. She is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she serves as the Costume Director for Opera Southwest. Her recent design credits include; Dona Clementina, Llantos 1492, Matilde, Before Night Falls, Bluebeard’s Castle, and L’Occasione fa il ladro. She has also designed and built costumes for numerous New Mexico regional and local theatre companies.
New Mexico Shakespeare Festival: Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, As You Like It, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. University of New Mexico Opera: Le Nozze Di Figaro, Little Women Other design credits: Constellations with The Vortex, as well as Silent Sky with Actors Studio 66.
Eliseo Aragon
Eliseo Aragon started his theater career in Bernalillo, New Mexico at the ripe age of 11. Since then, he has designed lighting for most major theatrical companies in the Albuquerque area, including Fusion Theater and New Mexico Ballet Company. He is excited to be working with Guerilla Opera to produce innovative and engaging new work!
Think Outside the Vox
Think Outside the Vox (https://thinkoutsidethevox.org/) closes the gap between Deaf, Blind, DeafBlind, and disabled patrons, and artists, BIPOC/AAPI/marginalized/disabled access providers, and arts organizations, which are often inaccessible. We train and facilitate hiring of Deaf, Blind DeafBlind, disabled, and marginalized professionals to develop and diversify the voices of accessibility in the arts sector. Vox collaborates with theaters, museums, cultural institutions, and arts organizations to improve accessibility practices, remove barriers, and amplify Disability Justice & Joy in these spaces. We provide arts access consulting and training that centers on disability culture for arts institutions. We aim to implement measurable change within the sector by customizing access plans equitably and sustainably. Thank you to the ASL interpreters: Ingrid O’Dell, C Ledford, Desirée Weems, Jessenia Kolaco, Julia Barnes, Adri Neefus
Olivia Reinebach
Olivia (they/she) is a Hard of Hearing mixed Latinx artist and accessibility administrator. They are the Marketing & Communications Manager for Think Outside the Vox and a Presenter/Performer at the Museum of Science Planetarium. She has freelanced as a choreographer/dance teacher for beginner and intermediate level youth and adults (Sabor Latino BU, Apollinaire Play Lab, Edison K-8) with roots in merengue, bachata and salsa. Via’s creative and production credits include: pre and in-show Audio Description in dance and theater spaces (The Theater Offensive, The Huntington, American Repertory Theater), Access & Communication Lead for public art installation Into the Body, Into the Ground (Nelly Kate, The Boston Public Art Triennial), Stage Manager for The Dance Complex (Funny Uncle, Roots & Routes), PR & Marketing Director and actor in The Handless Maiden (NYU Steinhardt) and ASL Consultant for The Raft of the Medusa (Juilliard Theatre).
Kwaku Darko
Kwaku Darko was born in Ghana, West Africa, and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, where he would discover his passion for the arts. In 2021, he moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, furthering himself as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger and educator. During summers, Kwaku has interned in Vermont under the Learn Earn And Prosper program, where he's now a mentor for Blind and Low Vision youth. Beyond music, Kwaku writes poetry with the Boston Blackseed Writers and seasonally serves as Assistant Director with Camp Exsighting. He currently works as a Associate Teacher at Match Community Day Charter Public School in Hyde Park and consults on Audio Description with Think Outside the Vox, most prominently delivering AD expertise on Mfoniso Udofia’s UFOT Family Cycle. He was the Director of Beyond the Blackbox, a live production of his original compositions performed fully in the dark to bring disability advocacy and awareness in the music and performance space.
Leadership support to underwrite the National Theater Project has been generously
provided by the Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.
Ululations and Gurgles of the Invisible was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts; National Theater Project, with lead funding from the Mellon Foundation and additional funding from the Doris Duke Foundation.
Guerilla Opera Staff
Yooree Losordo
Interim Executive Director
Mike Williams
Co-Founding Artist & Ensemble Director
Keithlyn B. Parkman
Director of Design & Production
Samuel Beebe
Community & Education Manager
Mia Joseph
Marketing Coordinator
Rose Williams
Development Coordinator
By Federico García Lorca
| The Silent Boy
The little boy was looking for his voice. (The king of the crickets had it.) In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. I do not want it to speak with; I will make a ring of it so that he may wear my silence on his little finger. In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. (The captive voice, far away, put on a crickets clothes.) |
El Niño Mudo
|
|
Betrothal
|
Desposorio
|
