AH! Buddhist opera no-opera (Los Angeles)

A Counterpoint of Tolerance: AH!
Interactive Opera No-Opera

“Arouse the mind without resting it on anything”

- Diamond Sutra

REDCAT transforms its flexible performance space into an immersive visual and sonic environment for the world premiere of this inventive international collaboration. Composed and performed by creators from around the globe, this pioneering collective work draws inspiration from the classic Buddhist text, the Diamond Sutra.

With composer-performer David Rosenboom and award-winning poet Martine Bellen, the creative team has developed AH! as a celebratory passage across musical cultures and times: a polyglot clarion call for understanding and unity in today’s globalized, ever-more interconnected world.

Spinning off a mandala of 13 extraordinary and ordinary modern-life stories, this spellbinding opera brings together an array of robotic and interactive musical technologies, ingenious stagecraft, and flights of phenomenal musicianship. In the theatrically heightened environment of AH!, everyday life is placed flush against esoteric and transcendent realities.

Performing live, Rosenboom and 10 composer-performers from across the Americas, Europe, and East Asia are joined by an additional cast of musicians, theatermakers, and interactive artists under the direction of Travis Preston, who stages this exceptional music event with production designer Christopher Barreca, choreographer Mira Kingsley, and video designer Jeremiah Thies.

• Interact with and contribute to AH! via the Web at ah-opera.org

The audience is invited to engage with and contribute to AH! before, during and after performances, via the website http://www.ah-opera.org/, mobile media, and a magical multitouch screen at the theater. Arrive early and participate!

DETAILS

A Counterpoint of Tolerance is a project commissioned by the Transatlantic Arts Consortium (TAC). This production of AH! is made possible with generous support from TAC, The Evelyn Sharp Foundation, Judith O. and Robert E. Rubin, and Abby Sher. World premiere: A co-production of the The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts and the CalArts Center for New Performance, in cooperation with Idyllwild Arts.

Date & Time: September 16, 17, 18 at 8:30 PM.
General Admission: $12-$25
TICKETS (online, or call REDCAT's box office at 213-237-2800).

AH! Buddhist Opera in Los Angeles

A Counterpoint of Tolerance: AH!
(Sept. 16, 17, 18, 2009) Bringing together an array of robotic and interactive musical technologies, ingenious stagecraft, and flights of phenomenal musicianship, REDCAT is transformed into an immersive visual and sonic environment for the world premiere of this inventive international collaboration, composed and performed by creators from around the globe and inspired by the classic Buddhist text, the Diamond Sutra.

• Collaborate with artists, contribute to music: ah-opera.org

Ahopera mandala (CLICK HERE)

The Earliest dated printed Book
The Buddhist text known around the world as the Diamond Sutra (or Vajra Cutter Sutra) is a short Mahayana discourse of the Perfection of Wisdom (prajna-paramita) genre.

It teaches the practice of the avoidance of abiding in extremes of mental attachment. A copy of the sutra, found early in the 20th century among the Dunhuang manuscripts, is in the words of the British Library, "the earliest complete survival of a dated printed book."

It is inscribed, "Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 15th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [11 May 868]." This is about 587 years before the Gutenberg Bible. More>>