I suppose if there’s anything good to come out of the pandemic it is that while we are staying at home, we have been given tremendous opportunities to see performances, festivals, productions and concert we would never have seen otherwise. Case-in-point is the ninth annual Prototype Festival.

Keeping in mind what’s going on, curators Jecca Barry, Kristin Marting, and Beth Morrison have created this year a festival that showcases work that can easily be enjoyed at home. The works were mostly created in response to the reality of living in a pandemic. Rather than a lengthy creation/development process, several pieces were created within the year.

Prototype begins on Friday, January 8th and continues through Saturday, January 16th. All but one of the programs is available for streaming. All but one work is free to view. Those who live in New York will have the opportunity to see the one in-person event, but more about that in a minute.

Here is the line-up for the 2021 Prototype Festival:

Opening the festival is the digital world premiere of Modulation. Composers Jojo Abot, Sahba Aminikia, Juhi Bansal, Raven Chacon, Carmina Escobar, Yvette Jackson,Molly Joyce, Jimmy López, Angelica Negrón, Paul Pinto, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Joel Thompson, and Bora Yoon were all asked to write music for this viewer-lead experience.

The work examines how opera and theatre can adapt and perhaps thrive by embracing digital technology. Viewers watching Modulation get to choose their own path which asks them to deal with very real issues exacerbated by the pandemic.

There are 13 different pieces included. Imaginary Places designed the visual components. This is the only priced-ticket part of the festival. Tickets are $25.

Beginning on January 9th is Times3 (Times x Times x Times) which sounds perfect for headphones. Composer Pamela Z and artist Geoff Sobelle created Times3 to give a sense of Times Square and its history in all its sonic glory before the pandemic rendered the popular tourist destination eerily quiet.

Also having its debut on January 9th will be the one in-person event. Ocean Body, which utilizes film and music, is an installation at HERE in SOHO. Appointments to see the show are required as each audience is limited to eight people. Longtime collaborators composer/vocalists Helga Davis and Shara Nova have teamed up with filmmaker Mark DeChiazza and visual artist Annica Cuppetelli for Ocean Body.

The next three programs are grouped together as Digital U.S. Premieres. They are:

The Murder of Halit Yozgat is an opera inspired by a tragic event that is hard to believe. The title character was 21 when he was assassinated in a parents’ café in Kassel, Germany in 2006. He was shot twice in the head. In spite of this being in a very small café, in broad daylight, a German secret service agent who was there claims he never heard a gunshot and never noticed Yozgat’s lifeless body.

Composer Ben Frost and Petter Ekmann have collaborated with librettist Daniela Danz to bring this story to life. This is not a traditional opera. Electronic music, dark metal and sound art are all utilized in the score. Frost directed the film that will be streaming.

The Planet – A Lament is a song cycle depicting life in a small village trying to recover from a tsunami.

Director Garin Nugroho, working with dramaturg Michael Kantor, consulted with Papuan choreographers, composers and dancers to realize The Planet – A Lament. The project was born out of the research of Papuan singer/composer Septina Layan.

Layan also performs The Planet which utilizes film, live dance and a 14-voice choir to examine how life and creation can arise from such a devastating disaster.

Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists was inspired by the book of poetry by the same name by a. Rawlings. The work was composed by Valgeir Sigurðsson.

In Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists, the stages of sleep are mirrored with the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths. From egg to larva to caterpillar to moth is depicted in parallel to insomnia, narcolepsy, dream states and sleepwalking.

Of all the offerings at Prototype Festival, this one intrigues me the most.

The first of scheduled artist chats begins on Sunday, January 10th. To see the schedule for a specific offering, click on the title of each piece to be taken to more details, access to tickets and details about the artist chats.

Photo: An image from Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists (Photo courtesy Prototype Festival)

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