Untitled performance

created and performed with Coral Douglas, Eliot Burk, and Seare Farhat, under the mentorship of opera composer Du Yun

presented with Cornell University Department of Music at the Foundry in Ithaca, NY, 2024

I was lucky to collaborate with composers Coral Douglas, Eliot Burk, and Seare Farhat to generate this performance that mixed our attractions to crocodiles, consumption and entertainment, light, laugh tracks and the tricks of fear and desire. What came out of it was a fantastical nightscape, where time slowed down in our absurdist sensemaking.

Seare suggested I look at Julio Cortázar’s short story “In the Name of Bobby,” and that became the root of my portion for this: we reconstructed Bobby’s dream of his limbs being stuck under a black cloth.

I was an eight year-old version of myself in clown, fighting and embracing my parental figure in black. At the end of the play, I ran into my own birthday party, where three characters met me with the birthday song: the parent in clown, the crocodile entertainer, and the party boss in a suit.

This project came to fruition through our sessions with the New York-based composer Du Yun.