FROTH or Future Archeologies of Love and Power (2010)

FROTH: Or Future Archeologies of Love and Power was a counter-performance, embedded within the musical and dramatic frame of the prologue of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Baroque opera “Hippolyte et Aricie” (1733).  

This large scale collaboration was launched by  invitation from Gina Crusco and  New York City’s Underworld Productions Opera Ensemble and featured Sinfonia New York, a Baroque music orchestra playing live on period instruments.  Katharina Klement appeared live, via Skype from Vienna, Austria playing prepared clavichord. The preview  occurred  at Symphony Space, New York, NY.  

The narrative infrastructure for the opera drew from Racine’s Phedre, based on Euripides’ “Hippolytus”.  A ‘supervideo’ (referencing supertitle translations, yet prominently projected center stage) was developed with media artist Robin Starbuck through an artist residency at Sarah Lawrence College.  By situating the video center stage, image and text layers gave audiences participatory status in co-creating the experience of connecting pasts with presents and futures.  Book performed live and created real-time composition with presets she developed with patches from Klement’s prepared clavichord in a processing program, as well as looping and voice processing.