Byron Au Yong

songs of dislocation
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 Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas
for hiking singers, water percussionists

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DESCRIPTION
Kidnapping Water is a site-responsive work available as Waterway Performances and a Sound/Light Installation.

In Summer 2008, four pairs of hiking singers and percussionists performed 64 Bottled Operas in lakes, fountains and other waterways throughout the Northwest.

PRESS QUOTES
"... exquisite darkness... whimsical lines... captivating experience."
Chris DeLaurenti, The Stranger
 
"Water is both the theme of the poetry and the percussionists' basic sound source. They create musical effects both dramatic and delicate by manipulating it with eight natural materials."
Gavin Borchert, Seattle Weekly

"Au Yong deploys the repetition in these travels as a way to create the physical musical rituals that fill Kidnapping Water.... He also aims to use ritual to challenge the structure of American society."

"... maybe this is your weekend to doggie-paddle in water opera."
Katelyn Hackett, Seattlest

"Byron Au Yong’s Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas got my mind racing through the possibilities of performance without a performance space."
Zach Carstensen, The Gathering Note
CREATIVE TEAM

composer Byron Au Yong

media artist Randy Moss
librettists Aaron Jafferis, Caroline Murphy, Eugenie Chan, Edisa Weeks, Bret Fetzer, Archana Kumar, Vivian Umino, Carola Luther

SHOWINGS
4Culture Site-Specific, August 2008
Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts, Sept 2008
Jack Straw New Media Gallery, Sept-Nov 2008
Town Hall Seattle, May 2010
Staging Sustainability, Toronto, April 2011

NPR INTERVIEW

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas

Jeremy Richards, KUOW Sound Focus


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