Rolf Wallin’s opera Elysium, premiered at the beginning of the year at Oslo Opera House, took opera into the realm of science fiction in a futuristic scenario where an advanced race of ‘transhumans’ has eradicated disease and ageing.
For Ultima’s opening concert Wallin has extended Elysium’s world of sound and voice in motion, to create a new work, The Otheroom, filling the Oslo City Hall with a pageant of fluid, non-stop movement. Dancers, musicians, floating black and white helium-filled balloons containing loudspeakers, and even the audience will never stay fixed to one spot. Created in collaboration with Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki/fieldworks, this event is described by the composer as ‘a kind of ritual’.
NB! Free entrance, ticket required (available here).
Composer & concept: Rolf Wallin
Choreography, scenography & concept: Heine Avdal, Yukiko Shinozaki
Musicians: Marco Blaauw (double bell trumpet), Christine Chapman (double bell French horn), Bruce Collings (double bell trombone), Melvyn Poore (double bell euphonium)
Performers: Heine Avdal, Michiel Reynaert, Orfee Schuijt, Benjamin Vandewalle
Performed also by: Krisjanis Sants
Assisted by: Kayoko Minami, Ingrid Haakstad
Technical director: Hans Meijer
Technique: Matthieu Virot
Sound technique: Fabrice Moinet, Johann Loiseau
Live electronics programming: Peiman Khosravi
Producers: fieldworks (Brussels, Belgium), Heine Avdal (Oslo, Norway), Ultima Festival (Oslo, Norway)
Co-producers: STUK (Leuven, Belgium)
Supported by: The Norwegian Composers’ fund, Vlaamse Overheid, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, PACT Zollverein (Essen, Germany)
