Jan 8 & 9
4:00 p.m.
New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

Hosted by: New Museum of Contemporary Art

An agoraphobic hypochondriac — or is that a hypochondriac agoraphobe? — takes you on a fantastical journey through her delusions in Whispering Pines 10, a live one-act multimedia opera by Shana Moulton and Nick Hallett.

Moulton is Cynthia, a woman trapped in her apartment with only her delusions to keep her company. Cynthia’s fantasies play out on large screens that Moulton interacts with in real time in a sort of dizzying kaleidoscope of feverish video dreams.

You can watch a sample of a previous performance of this opera below. It really is quite incredible how Moulton, live on stage, becomes a part of the videos that screen behind her. At some points, it actually gets quite confusing to realize that she is not in the video being projected and that she’s simply standing in front of a screen, making minimal body gestures that are syncopated with the video’s movement.

The Whispering Pines project was begun by Molton in 2002 and has included nine previous episodes, along with related gallery installations, videos and performances. The music for this installment was composed by Nick Hallett and the soprano performing is Daisy Press.

For more on the artists, please visit the official websites for Moulton and Press.

Watch the Whispering Pines 10 trailer: