Orpheus in UNDERWORLD

Orpheus in UNDERWORLD: An Immersive Rock Opera

FRIDAY 18.9. & SATURDAY 19.9. at 19:00
Pannu Hall – DANCE HOUSE , Cable Factory,
Kaapelinaukio 3, Helsinki, Finland

Orpheus in UNDERWORLD is a contemporary version of the Orphean myth that fuses opera, dance, extended reality, motion capture and interactive technologies. This world premiere is co-produced by re:Naissance Immersive and contemporary dance company, Belle Spirale, and is to be presented as part of CENSORED Opera Festival with Ensemble Nylandia.

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.

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, Orpheus journeys to UNDERWORLD, an online virtual world, where they find the opportunity to express themself through avatars in extended reality. As O navigates the fluid landscapes of identity and technology, Orpheus in UNDERWORLD challenges us to question: how do we navigate the vastness of our identities in spaces that resist our multiplicity?

Audiences are encouraged to arrive to the performance early to experience UNDERWORLD in virtual reality before the story begins.

Orpheus in UNDERWORLD is part of the opera series Censored, of which the second part La Doriclea: Inter-Acts is performed at the Music Centre’s Black Box on 11.9. and 12.9.

Co-creators

Brian Topp
Luke Hathaway
Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野
Debi Wong
Benton Roark
Alexis Fletcher
Neel Nair

Performers

Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野
Brandon Thornhill
Leo D.E. Johnson

Co-producers

• re:Naissance (CAN)
• Belle Spirale Dance Projects (CAN)

Presented by:
Ensemble Nylandia / Censored Opera Festival

Thank you to our funders and partners

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. We are supported by the province of British Columbia. We’re able to continue developing this project with the support from the National Creation Fund from the National Arts Centre.

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 shows, first in 2024 as Eurydice Fragments, and in 2026 as Orpheus in UNDERWORLD.

Orpheus in UNDERWORLD has evolved out of many workshops and explorations, including OrpheusVR, the award-winning Live From The Underworld, Tap Ex: Augmented Opera, and Eurydice Fragments that have been supported over the years by: the National Creation Fund from the National Arts Centre, 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.