2021 Exhibition
14. Street Art Opera double bill
Artist Information
Dumbworld’s Street Art Operas are a unique blend of contemporary classical music, opera, street art and animation, presented as an outdoor video and sound installation projected onto city walls / buildings.
Duration: each opera is 10 minutes.
Playbill:
He Did What?: Two women octogenarian pensioners, on Zimmer frames [walkers], stage a hit on a cheating husband…safe in the knowledge they will be better taken care of in prison than on their pitiful pensions.
Two Angels Play I Spy: Two Angels stand high on a building overlooking the city, peering into the past and into the future as they wait for their duties to kick in. To pass the time, they play I Spy, but as only angels can…
Previous performances include Edinburgh Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Glasgow Sonica Festival and Rotterdam Operadagen Festival.
“Utterly captivating. The perfect introduction for an opera novice and an exciting and challenging alternative for die hard opera goers.” ★★★★ Edinburgh Festival
“The visuals are gritty and vivid, a street-art aesthetic laced with tender” heart. The music is punchy, searing, propulsive, extravagant, apposite.” Herald Scotland
“good graphics, amusing irony and great music. Recommended!*****” British Theatre Guide
Visit the Artwork on our map here: https://dlectricity.com/map/#14.
Dumbworld Ltd.
Dumbworld is one of Ireland’s most creative & versatile arts organisations, with a national & international reputation for the quality, breadth, inclusivity, and impact of its artistic work.
Established in 2009 by composer Brian Irvine & writer/director John McIlduff, Dumbworld is an artist led, multi-disciplinary, creative production company that makes work found at the intersection of performance, music, image, and words.
Using theatre, film, arts installation, virtual reality, opera, animation, and orchestral oratorio Dumbworld creates cutting edge, contemporary performance art.
Recent work includes Fatal System Error - an on-line digital assistant is deleted in a scene reminiscent of an operatic death as part of Royal Opera House’s 8bit festival of digital opera, Carnival of Shadows: #1 Possible Human - a site specific multi-media exploration of opera, archaeology and skateboarding for Kilkenny Arts Festival, Anything But Bland – a portrait of Lilian Bland, the Belfast aviator who in 1910 was the first woman to design build and fly her own aeroplane, performed by 250 women from throughout Northern Ireland with the Ulster Orchestra.
Dumbworld has won / been shortlisted for many awards including the Irish Times Theatre Award, Irish Allianz Arts Award, Ellen Stewart International Arts Award, Total Theatre Award for Innovation.
dumbworld.co.uk
Brian Irvine Bio
Composer Brian Irvine’s body of work reflects an obsessive love of music creation in all its forms and includes operas, orchestral works, large-scale oratorios, installations, film, theatre, and dance scores as well as ensemble, solo, chamber works.
His music is a highly personal concoction of punk, improvisation and contemporary classical, combining the known and the unknown, the free and the fixed, the schooled and the unschooled. He is driven by a single desire to connect, disrupt, reinvent, and reimagine all aspects of life, people, society, art and understanding in any and as many ways possible.
Often combining and layering diverse and opposing elements, his music has been commissioned, broadcast, and performed all over the world by a vast array of performers and organisations including the London Symphony Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Red Note Ensemble, Ulster Orchestra, Irish National Opera… to name but a few.
He has won many awards for his music including British Composers Award for Opera, Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composers Award and BBC Radio 3 Jazz Award. In 2016 he became the first Music Laureate for the City of Belfast and was awarded an MBE for services to music in 2011.
John McIlduff Bio
John McIlduff is a writer, stage director and filmmaker. His work spans opera, television, film, theatre, music videos, commercials, installations and even the odd song lyric. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, John studied at L’École de Theatre Jacques Lecoq in Paris where he still lives.
His Film4 feature film Behold The Lamb premiered at the Toronto International film Festival and was awarded Best Screenplay at Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Best Director at the Arras International Film Festival. His short films include LE POIRIER (Centre National de Cinéma Prix de Qualité), A L’ARRIÈRE (Prix de la mis en scène au Festival du Film d’aventures de Valenciennes) and MOTION SICKNESS (Best Irish Short – Cork Film Festival, Best Dance Film - Fastnet Film Festival).
John both writes and directs for the stage. Works includes an adaption of Dostoevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and the operas Postcards From Dumbworld (nominated for Best Opera – Irish Times Theatre Awards), The Oldest Woman In Limerick (Limerick City of Culture commission) and Shelter Me From The Rain (Allianz Business to Arts Award).
John was co-awarded the ARTISTS TAKING THE LEAD commission for Northern Ireland as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad for the sonic installation NEST.