Things We Throw Away: reinventing urban spaces through street art opera (70’)
- Submitting institution
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University of Ulster
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 86159861
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
- July
- Year
- 2014
- URL
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https://ulster.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/REF2021/EfIEgzTve8ZLucAdN5sJQXMBpFFW-hsGGOJs-ZI8CKJodQ?e=o1fSpS
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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D - Arts practices, practice-as-research
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Multi-component and Dissemination:
This output combines seven operas informed and inspired by street art, in two main groups. The first five, for pre-recorded orchestra and live singers, were commissioned by Dublic City Council and premiered 4/5th July, 2014 in locations across Dublin. These works informed the creation of two projected screen operas: 'He Did What?' (Brooklyn Academy of Music, 27th October to 2nd November, 2018) and 'Two Angels Play I Spy' (Waterford Walls Festival, 22nd to 24th August, 2019). All use street art as a starting point for exploring urban space and experience.
Aims and Context:
'Things We Throw Away' aims to illuminate and interrogate human vulnerability, informed by the concept of street art as a starting point for an exploration of the situation of contemporary opera within urban spaces. Performed or projected in public spaces, the work reinvents urban spaces as artistic arenas, eroding distinctions between place and non-place.
Methodology and Findings:
The audiovisual language combines elements of contemporary culture and media, reflecting the tension between the shared and disparate identities of an accidental audience ('Banana Woman'), the salience and pathos of discarded objects ('Ironing Board Blues'), and the superimposition of large-scale orchestral scores and vocal performance upon urban spaces. A triadic relationship, combining this musical language, the social/political content, and place, forms the model for interrogation. This allows new synergies to emerge between the function of a place and the works’ content: e.g. 'He Did What?' (2018) addresses age and poverty and has been projected/performed on the walls of social security buildings, banks and hospitals. With over 525 performances in cities throughout Europe, and in New York, the format has subsequently provided a broadly applicable solution to the need for artistic experience which is participatory in the broader sense of reimagining urban space and its social function.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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