’Ego’ – designed by Lonneke Gordijn of Studio Drift – moves with the performance in a minimal and modern manifestation of the world’s oldest-known opera,‘My first encounter with artist collective Studio Drift was in Eindhoven, a work that to me, addresses life, death and nature,’ recalls opera stage director Monique Wagemakers.
The performance is a minimal and modern manifestation on a digital-age stage, described by Gordijn as ‘where technology is used to create visual effects that are impossible in a “real” situation and to sculpt an experience where dance, music, voice,debuted on 25 January in Enschede and will be performed at the iconic Carré theatre in Amsterdam on 9 and 11 February.
‘It was important for me to get the inner world of Orfeo visible; to be the space in which the opera takes place’‘The biggest challenge was to create swift and sharp movements and we developed a tensioner on the pulley system to achieve that and to ensure that the strings never get entangled on the stage even when fully extended,’ Gordijn explains. During the performance, an operator directs the block to align with the performers.
To demonstrate its full capacity, Ego will go solo at Pace Gallery’s New York space during the Armory Show in early March. A new performance is in development and the studio is seeking the most unexpected musician to pair it with. The gallery version, tailored to the space, will be in black nylon and smaller in scale. The new challenge is that the nylon threads are so thin that the
is almost invisible. Gordijn explains: ‘when it shifts, falls or contracts, the threads layer up, and you will see black starting to emerge in the middle of the space.’ §