Photo by Yossi Michaeli
Hush Arbor (The Opera), created by Imani Uzuri, will be a mercurial musical meditation on “liminality” (standing at the threshold) exploring of themes death, rebirth, impermanence and transcendence.
The opera, inspired by hidden gathering places created by enslaved African Americans in wooded areas to secretly worship, commune and strategize rebellion, is a contemporary musical meditation. The work features polyphonic singing, instrumental rumblings, poetic text and sacred movement and will consider the notion of the need for communion as a strategy towards deeper understanding and transformation of our human condition.
It will be a contemporary tonal exploration using a collage of narrative, sacred text from various traditions, original compositions including chants and arias, sacred movement and visual elements as a means to investigate what it means and what it feels like to be “in‐between”, in a liminal space, as we endeavor to cross over from one realm (spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, physically) to another.
- $32,400 to support Hush Arbor (The Opera) (MAP 2015)
- $4,684 to general operating support for Harlem Stage / Aaron Davis Hall, Inc.
