Slought, the ModLab group at PennEngineering, and the Immersive Kinematics group at PennDesign, are pleased to announce Orpheus and Eurydice: Electromechanical Redux, a contemporary retelling of the classic operatic story, on Saturday, December 13, 2014 at 8pm at Slought. The program will feature a 45 minute experimental performance, followed by a 45 minute conversation with the organizers. Afterwards, the public will be invited to actively participate in the production by examining the technology and talking with the performers, engineers and architects.

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a classic operatic story in which Orpheus descends into the Underworld, tames the Furies, makes a plea to Hades and Persephone, and attempts the rescue of Eurydice. This project dynamically reworks this famous myth by foregrounding interaction among human opera singers, musicians, and actuated devices. Conceptually, Orpheus and Eurydice: Electromechanical Redux offers a series of exploratory sketches concerning how technology, live performance and narration can come together in retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The staging of the production will emulate a laboratory or workshop environment, and will be devoid of set, director or conventional staging.

The production team encompasses faculty and students from engineering and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, an award-winning former composer-in-residence of Opera Philadelphia, and musicians from the Curtis Institute of Music, all working together with robotic performers and players.

Architecture and theater have had a long-standing relationship, from Palladio's designs for the Teatro Olimpico to Modernist Bauhaus productions and, more recently, the contemporary work of Diller Scofidio + Renfro. For PennDesign, architecture and dramaturgy is tethered to material transformations over time and sound. At Slought, these transformations are activated by new technologies and new media in response to opera and audience. The movement of the human performers, and the music they produce, is echoed in the activation of sound and movement in the devices and structures on stage. To learn more about these methodologies, as well as past projects by Mark Yim and Simon Kim, read The Robot Etudes and Motion and Modular Architecture.