Eurydice Fragments

World Premiere Presented at IndieFest 2024

Opening IndieFest 2024, Eurydice Fragments is a contemporary version of the Greek Orphean myth that fuses powerful vocal performances, dance, extended reality, motion capture and interactive technologies. Through an immersive exploration of our digital and carbon existences, the performance dissolves the binaries we are bound to from birth until death, and strums the threads between heaven and hell, male and female, maker and muse, performer and audience.

Co-created with Luke Hathaway and Teiya Kasahara, the story follows O, a trans person whose sense of gender and identity is expansive — yet who has lived a fractured life. Haunted by past experiences and personhoods that have been suppressed, repressed, or condemned, O journeys to the Styx, a queer bar, where they find the opportunity to express themself through avatars in extended reality.

As O navigates the fluid landscapes of identity and technology, Eurydice Fragments challenges us to question: how do we navigate the vastness of our identities in spaces that resist our multiplicity?

World Premiere Presented at Signals Studio at the Centre for Digital Media, November 2024.

Content note for representations of intersex/trans/nonbinary-erasure, in the form of oppressive language and systemic prejudice: these are things our production attempts to disrupt. Specific scenes draw on oppressive language around prenatal identification of intersex genetics, and on legal language enforcing limitations on gender fluidity.

Project Team
Artistic Director: Debi Wong
Composer: Benton Roark,
Interactive Audio, Composer: Brian Topp
Writers: Luke Hathaway, Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野, Debi Wong
with contributions from Omari Newton
Director: Debi Wong
Dramaturg: Debi Wong, Stephanie Wong
Director of Virtual Productions: Neelesh Nair
Mocap Consultant: Alexis Fletcher
Choreographer: Alexis Fletcher

Performers
O: Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野
Hope: Brandon Thornhill
Plusephone: Toddy (Emily Bilton)
Charon: Leo D.E. Johnson
Chorus: Sara Vickruck, Asitha Tennekoon, Alyssa Samson
Co-Music Directors & Keyboardists: Jen Lewin, Perri Lo, Alex Chen
Beatboxer: Scribbly Doodle

Design Team
Lead Designer: Stephanie Wong
Lighting Designer: Keagan Elrick
Sound Designer: Brian Topp
3D Artists: Bob Kreut
Costume Designer: Alexa Fraser
Projection Designer: Neelesh Nair

Production and Technical Team
Technical Director – Production Manager: Nico Dicceco
Technical Director – Virtual Production: Neel Nair
Mocap Technician: Noah Miller
Audio Engineer: Brian Topp
Developer (Game Engines): Bob Kreut
Underworld App Designer: Liting He
Stage Manager: Maria Zarillo
Assistant Stage Manager: Anna Brew
Mixing / Mastering: Jack Chipman, Will Howie
Assistant Producer: Alex Chen
Lead Producer: Debi Wong

Thank you to our funders and partners

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About Eurydice Fragments

In 2023, after more than four years of work with emerging technology inside the myth of Eurydice, re:Naissance’s new project Eurydice Fragments received an investment from the National Creation Fund. This major investment allows us to present a new, full length immersive show that is the culmination of 4 years of development and experimentation, premiering at IndieFest 2024 at a brand new venue in False Creek.

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Workshop History

re:Naissance had the opportunity to present a first workshop of Eurydice Fragments live at the Annex in November during IndieFest 2023.

A second workshop performance of Eurydice Fragments was presented at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre on Feb 3 2024.

We are grateful to our audience and collaborators, our funders and sponsors, and the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund for this incredible opportunity to develop and showcase new works.

Eurydice Fragments has evolved out of many workshops and explorations, including OrpheusVR, the award-winning Live From The Underworld and Tap Ex: Augmented Opera, that have been supported by: the Canada Council for the Arts, Government of Canada, City of Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, CreativeBC, British Columbia Arts Council, Vancouver Civic Theatres, MITACS, Reallusion, Movella, the Sawmill Studios, Tapestry Opera and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

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Eurydice Fragments Project Collaborators

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Project History

In 2018 a team of digital and opera artists came together to ask “what would opera look like if it were invented today?”. From that initial question OrpheusVR, an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure, virtual-reality opera was born. In 2020, a prototype was presented at VIFF Immersed.

After completing the prototype in 2021, the OrpheusVR team started working in the digital live stream space, using real-time motion capture technology and computer avatars from the OrpheusVR world to create live, interactive operatic performances that can be streamed from any device, resulting in Live from the Underworld. From there, these concepts have evolved to be presented as a new, full length immersive show in 2024, as Eurydice Fragments.