Event

Institute_Institut

The Panoply Performance Laboratory (PPL) and the cell present:

Institute_Institut
~a new performance art opera~

PPL's new opera Institute_Institut combines sung text, stop-motion video, supertitles, and action-based movement to address institutionalized existence. As joyous as a baptism, as formally convoluted as a psychiatric exam, and as frightening as kindergarten, Institute_Institut re-performs publicly-gathered private philosophies and emotional experiences.

The third piece in the Transformational Grammar of the Institutional Glorybowl, this performance art and music work attempts to express a convergence of subjectivities, a multiplicity of sensual experiences, and to perform a participatory sandwich-making ritual using the dry bread of deep thought and the soft cheese of deep emotion.

The all new music by composer Brian McCorkle is as influenced by Detroit funk as it is by classical opera and the new documentary libretto by Esther Neff combines research from interviews and a series of "Focus Workshops" with academic and philosophical texts, surveys, academic theory in psychology, political science, and performance. Manipulating found props and pitch-shifted microphones, and the 13 performers play clown-like causations of institutional engagements, express emotional currents, and embody interlocking ideas and emotions, ultimately seeking themselves.

Violinist Daniella Fischetti, percussionist Greg Loewer Jr. and the composer on keyboard, sampler, and pitch-shifters accompany performers Megan Cooper, Alexandra DeSantis, Kristin Elliott, Katie Johnston, Hyatt Michaels, Natasha Missick, Michael Newton, Adrian Owen, Brian Rady, Dave Ruder, Matthew Stephen Smith, Marie Weigl and Andrew Whipple. Directed and designed by Esther Neff.

Produced by the Panoply Performance Laboratory with support from the Brooklyn Arts Council, The LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Materials for the Arts, incubation by the cell theatre, and through fiscal sponsorship from Artspire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Arts.

All proceeds from the performances benefit the cell, A Twenty First Century Salon