The (unfinished) ballad of Adam and Elena Emery
for musicians, dancers, and multimedia (2012)
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The (unfinished) Ballad of Adam and Elena Emery is an evening-length, multimedia performance piece based on a Rhode Island murder story from 1990. It is a performance setting of fragmented details of this tragic event for four dancers, nine musicians, and multiple interactive multimedia installations staged in various rooms of a five-story church in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. It is a “roving performance” in which the audience and performers freely move between installation spaces and performance scenes scattered throughout the building.
This piece served as my dissertation project for the completion of my doctoral degree in the MEME program at Brown University. Along with the performance, my written dissertation paper contributes a new working method for building roving performances, developed through my own experience and in dialogue with other roving performances, and with the philosophy of Henri Bergson’s movement-based perception and Jacques Rancière’s Emancipated Spectator. An article of based on my dissertation work on roving performance, published at the online performance journal Howlround, can be viewed HERE. Performers: Adrian Moore, Anna Muselmann, Brandon Shaw, Stephanie Turner – dancers, choreographers Yayra Sánchez – soprano Aliana de la Guardia – mezzo-soprano Rossana Chung and Abigale Reisman – violin Ken Allen – viola Anna Seda – cello Peter McGrath – trumpet Jeffrey Neilson – percussion Kirsten Volness – piano/keyboard Matt Desmarais – bass guitar, seismic activity Video Documentation (excerpts from performance, Curtain Room detail, installation spaces detail, also viewable HERE) |