David T. Little's BLACK LODGE to Have LA And NYC Premieres
Black Lodge melds dance, industrial rock, classical string quartet, and opera into a surrealistic and visceral exploration of memories and the pain they can bring.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Oct. 01, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Primo Artists | VP, Public Relations
katy@primoartists.com | 212.837.8466
David T. Little's GRAMMY-Nominated Black Lodge Embarks on Fall/Winter Tour
Aug./Sept. Screenings at Halland Opera & Vocal Festival 2024 in Sweden
Oct. 19: CAP UCLA and Beth Morrison Projects Present
West Coast Premiere in Special Halloween-Time Production
Jan. 11-15: Live NYC Premiere, Presented by PROTOTYPE Festival,
at Village East by Angelika
Watch the Music Video for My Childhood
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"Little's music sets the nightmare to music with virtuosity" - Neue Musikzeitung
New York, NY (October 1, 2024) - Composer David T. Little's GRAMMY-nominated opera Black Lodge-praised for "indefatigable goth aplomb" (The New York Times) and "always thrilling and always disturbing," (Neue Musikzeitung)-kicks off a tour this fall that will extend into winter of 2025, with two screenings in Sweden and premieres on both U.S. coasts: a special Halloween-time party in Los Angeles and a run of live performances in New York City.
On August 30, 2024 at 9:00 PM and September 1, 2024 at 6:00 PM, Black Lodge was screened for Halland Opera and Vocal Festival 2024 in Sweden. The screening on August 30 took place at Cinema Röda Kvarn in Halmstad, and the September 1 screening at Cinema Maxim in Laholm.
Next, Black Lodge comes to Los Angeles for its West Coast Premiere on Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 8:00 PM. Black Lodge will be performed at The United Theater on Broadway (fka the ACE Hotel), presented by UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) in partnership with Beth Morrison Projects for a special seasonal production, with costumes encouraged.
At 6:30 PM, audiences are invited to experience the haunted world of BARDO, a unique pre-show immersive theatrical experience created and directed by Sandra Powers. Step into a liminal space between life and death where lost souls linger, awaiting passage to the next realm. In this immersive pre-show experience, "you will confront your deepest secrets as you wander dark corridors amidst trapped shadows, tormented souls, and mystifying creatures, all bound to this otherworldly realm, in search of escape." Audience members are encouraged to come dressed in their spookiest finery and prepare for unexpected encounters around every corner.
BARDO will feature a brand new score by Little, released by Cantaloupe Music to coincide with the CAP UCLA performance, and available on all platforms digitally on October 25, 2024. Ticket holders will receive a free download code.
Following the Black Lodge performance, there will also be an after-party featuring DJ Baby Magick (Sarah Graves), who will be spinning spooky beats for a post-show dance party, and hosted by Jeffrey Damnit.
In early 2025, Black Lodge has its NYC Premiere, presented by PROTOTYPE, at Village East by Angelika on January 11, 14-15, 2025 at 8:30 PM and January 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM. PROTOTYPE is a visionary festival, providing a recurring showcase of opera-theater and music-theater pieces, that produces and presents a wide spectrum of works, from intimate black-box experiences to larger chamber opera productions. Tickets for the show will be on sale October 1st for Members and October 15th for General Audiences.
Black Lodge melds dance, industrial rock, classical string quartet, and opera into a surrealistic and visceral exploration of memories and the pain they can bring. Set in a nightmarish Bardo, a place between death and rebirth, where a tormented writer confronts demons of his own making in search of escape. This multimedia Lynchian journey serves as a visual and sonic escape room, inviting audiences to embark on the writer's volatile journey for relief.
The metal-infused opera film draws on the complex mythologies of David Lynch, William S. Burroughs, and Antonin Artaud. Featuring a libretto by celebrated poet Anne Waldman and performances by Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet, Black Lodge was recorded remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its premiere at Opera Philadelphia as a hybrid production by Beth Morrison Projects, and its subsequent soundtrack release on Cantaloupe Music, drew critical acclaim as well as a nomination for Best Opera Recording at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in 2024. Listen to Black Lodge.
"I think this is a piece that everybody can have their own experience with," Little says. "As an audience, you have to meet this piece halfway-engage with it on its terms, and let it tell you what it's got to tell you. And that will be different for everybody."
Program Information
David T. Little's Black Lodge (Screening)
Friday, August 30, 2024 at 9:00 PM
Cinema Röda Kvarn | Halmstad, Sweden
Tickets: Starting at 60 SEK
Link: www.nortic.se/ticket/show/223429
Libretto by Anne Waldman
Starring Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet
Story, Screenplay, and Film/Stage Direction by Michael VQ
David T. Little's Black Lodge (Screening)
Sunday, September 1, 2024 at 6:00 PM
Cinema Maxim | Laholm, Sweden
Tickets: Starting at 60 SEK
Link: www.nortic.se/ticket/show/223429
Libretto by Anne Waldman
Starring Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet
Story, Screenplay, and Film/Stage Direction by Michael VQ
David T. Little's Black Lodge [LIVE WEST COAST PREMIERE]
Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 8:00 PM (BARDO at 6:30 PM, AfterParty by DJ Baby Magick)
The United Theater on Broadway, CAP UCLA | Los Angeles, CA
Tickets: $47-72. UCLA student on sale: Sept. 1, 2024
Link: https://cap.ucla.edu/event/black-lodge
Libretto by Anne Waldman
Starring Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet
BARDO Cast:
Created and directed by Sandra Powers.
Produced by Beth Morrison Projects.
Original music by David T. Little.
Costumes by Sandra Powers. Displayed costumes from BLACK LODGE by Sindy Butz.
Hosted by Jeffrey Damnit, Sindy Butz (butoh performer), Brittaney Talbot and Chad Wyszynski (shadow puppetry), Matt Bruce (psychic), Roger Frojas (hungry ghost), Deneen Melody (hungry ghost), Michelle LaVon (hungry ghost), Kent Jenkins (hungry ghost), Erin Maxick (nurse), Alison Stanley (nurse), Alec Anderson-Carrasco (confessions reader), Erica Malachowski (Artaud's ghost), Michael Lanham (death), Olivia Xing (witch), Gary Cook (tormented writer), MaryKate Glenn (tormented writer), Keila Cone-Uemura (tormented writer), Prix de Beaute (burlesque), Cat Ravyan (page piercer), Pony Lee (page piercer), Darija Varnas (model), Megan Sutherland (model), Tiffany Brookefest (model), Tara Ozella (model), and Isaura String Quartet.
David T. Little's Black Lodge [LIVE NYC PREMIERE]
January 11, 14-15, 2025 at 8:30 PM and January 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Village East by Angelika | NY, NY
Tickets: Tickets on sale October 1st for Members and October 15th for General Audiences
Link: https://prototypefestival.org/shows/black-lodge/
Libretto by Anne Waldman
Starring Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet
Presented by PROTOTYPE, in partnership with Beth Morrison Projects
Story, Screenplay, and Film/Stage Direction by Michael VQ
Presented by CAP UCLA, in partnership with Beth Morrison Projects
Story, Screenplay, and Film/Stage Direction by Michael VQ
About David T. Little
A natural musical storyteller with "a knack for overturning musical conventions" (The New York Times), composer David T. Little is known for stage, concert, and screen works permeated with eclectic influences and the power of the unexpected. Little readily probes the deep corners of human psychology, invoking religious, political, historical, spiritual, and social themes as pathways for exploring the human condition. He has drawn acclaim for operas including Dog Days, JFK, and the comedy Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera (all with libretto by Royce Vavrek), as well as his opera Soldier Songs. His broad catalog speaks to the mix of light and dark that we experience in life, unafraid to invoke the mythical, bewitching, disturbing, surreal, or comedic. His work Black Lodge was nominated for Best Opera Recording in the 2024 GRAMMY Awards.
In September 2024, Little unveiled his newest opera What Belongs to You, based on Garth Greenwell's critically acclaimed debut novel, at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond (VA). Developed for GRAMMY-winning tenor Karim Sulayman and Alarm Will Sound, the 20-piece ensemble is led by Alan Pierson, and with stage direction provided by renowned dancer, choreographer, and director Mark Morris, the "ravishing, ambiguous, and frankly erotic" (Night After Night) work was praised for its "intense juxtapositions of lyrical radiance and a hard edge" (The New York Times). Little, who is composer and librettist for the piece, took up Greenwell's text as the starting point for an opera in his own inimitable style, approaching What Belongs to You as a chance to reflect an evolution in his compositional energy and a turning inward, looking back to look forward; leaning away from the rock bombast of Black Lodge, toward something more introspective, informed more by Monteverdi than Metallica.
Little's Black Lodge, nominated for Best Opera Recording in the 2024 GRAMMY Awards, is a metal-infused film opera drawing on the complex mythologies of William S. Burroughs, Antonin Artaud, and David Lynch, with a libretto by celebrated poet Anne Waldman and performances by Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet. Black Lodge premiered by Beth Morrison Projects at Opera Philadelphia, and the soundtrack was released by Cantaloupe Music.
Among his other key compositions are several large-scale instrumental works, including the "ghost play" Haunt of Last Nightfall for percussion quartet, and AGENCY, a companion string quartet about the nature of choice and knowledge, in which "episodes of crushing sonic violence coexist with oases of serene lyrical beauty for an overall sense of smoldering, luxuriant noise" (The New York Times). Yet other works explore life's many highs: the ecstatic, almost manic energy of Spalding Gray, the Iggy Pop-inspired "joyous honk" of raw power, the wry humor of Speak Softly, the fond nostalgia of 1986, or the moonstruck aches of first love in JFK and What Belongs to You.
Little set the tone for his operatic work with the 2006 premiere of Soldier Songs, drawing praise for "the imaginative way he draws on his varied musical interests to produce arresting and coherent works" (Musical America). Based on extensive interviews with military veterans, the work has been performed by Los Angeles Opera, Atlanta Opera, San Diego Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and by Beth Morrison Projects at the Holland Festival. A film adaptation of Soldier Songs was later produced for the Opera Philadelphia Channel, earning a 2022 GRAMMY Award nomination and a 2022 Opera America Award.
Little's many compositions for solo performer or small ensemble often include ghostly or spiritual themes. Ghostlight, commissioned for Eighth Blackbird by The Kennedy Center, looks to surrealist art and fairy tales for their unspoken lessons, while dress in magic amulets, dark, from My feet is a meditation on Christ on the cross commissioned by The Crossing and International Contemporary Ensemble. Still other works draw from literary sources or history, such as The Crocus Palimpsest, a Samuel Beckett-inspired work for solo cello composed for Matt Haimovitz. The same is true for Little's works for orchestra and large ensemble, including The Conjured Life, a centennial tribute to Lou Harrison, and CHARM, a celebration of city life commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Little is the founding artistic director and former drummer for the amplified chamber ensemble, Newspeak, which explores the relationship of music and politics, while confronting head-on the boundaries between the classical and rock traditions. They have released four commercial recordings, with a fifth on the way.
Little has been commissioned by the world's most prestigious institutions and performers, including recent projects for The Metropolitan Opera/Lincoln Center Theater new works program, the Kennedy Center, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, London Sinfonietta, The Crossing, Kronos Quartet, and Beth Morrison Projects. His music has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Holland Festival, LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opéra de Montréal, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the LA Philharmonic. Little's recorded catalog includes over 20 commercial releases, on such labels as New Amsterdam Records, Pentatone, Sono Luminus, Bright Shiny Things, and Cantaloupe Music.
David T. Little is a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award. His music is published by Boosey & Hawkes. Learn more at www.davidtlittle.com.
About Anne Waldman
Poet, performer, librettist, curator, professor and cultural activist Anne Waldman is the author of more than 60 volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies including The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in The Mechanism of Concealment (Coffee House Press), which won the Pen Center Literary Prize. Her other titles include Manatee/Humanity, Gossamurmur and Trickster Feminism, all published by Penguin. Her album SCIAMACHY, released in 2020 by Fast Speaking Music and the Levy-Gorvy Gallery, has been described by Patti Smith as "exquisitely potent, a psychic shield for our times."
Waldman helped found The Poetry Project at St Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, where she worked for a decade as director - leading to the launch of an ongoing home and Mimeo Publishing empire for the most avant garde poetry and poetics, including the New York School, the Beat Literary Generation and Black Mountain lineages. Waldman also co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics program at Naropa University. In addition, she was keynote speaker for the Bob Dylan and the Beats Conference in Tulsa in the Spring of 2022. She wrote the libretto for the critically acclaimed opera/movie Black Lodge with music by composer David T. Little, which premiered at Opera Philadelphia in October 2022.
Waldman has collaborated with Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, Thurston Moore, James Brandon Lewis, choreographer Douglas Dunn and painter Pat Steir, as well as her family band: Fast Speaking Music with Devin Brahja Waldman and Ambrose Bye. Publishers Weekly has called her a "counter-cultural giant." Waldman is most recently the author of Bard, Kinetic (Coffee House Press, 2023) and co-editor with Emma Gomis of New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive (Nightboat, 2022). In a review of Waldman's Bard, Kinetic in the Poetry Foundation journal, reviewer Nick Sturm wrote: "Waldman is one of the most important and irreducible living American poets."
About Isaura String Quartet
The LA-based Isaura String Quartet has established a reputation as progressive disruptors; an ensemble that pushes boundaries while staying true to their mission of promoting contemporary chamber music through live performance, workshops, and collaborative projects with composers and interdisciplinary artists. ISQ's practice is centered around music, community, and developing systems to support and examine the spaces in which they work. Recent and upcoming collaborators include Alex Temple, Carmina Escobar, Charles Gaines, Sean Griffin, David T. Little, Gloria Coates, Kitty Brazelton, Laura Steenberge, Sarah Hennies, and Ulrich Krieger. ISQ also prioritizes new pieces through their programming, supporting the work of emerging composers.
Recent projects include ISQ Workshop, free remote workshops for anyone interested in writing for strings who might not otherwise have access to a string quartet; Black Lodge, an opera film with Timur and the Dime Museum, composed by David T. Little and produced by Beth Morrison Projects; Binary Complex: Tonal Duet, a durational algorithmic composition and exhibition by artist David Schafer at Royale Projects; The Planes of Your Location, a concert and upcoming recording of new string works by Kitty Brazelton; hum and Machines & Strings, featured concerts at REDCAT curated by the quartet; and an upcoming recording of Ulrich's Krieger's noise metal string quartet, Up-Tight II. In addition to ISQ's work in experimental and contemporary art music, they have performed and recorded with artists including Man Man, Baths, Jherek Bischoff, Demi Lovato, and the All-American Rejects. Learn more at http://isaurastringquartet.com/.
About Timur
Kazakh-American singer Timur, "the extravagantly transgressive tenor, dangerous and seductive" (LA Times), has made solo appearances with the LA Philharmonic, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Comédie de Genève, Sarasota Opera, Utah Opera, Santa Cecilia Academy, LA Opera, Nouvel Opéra Fribourg, Müpa Budapest, Hawaii Opera Theater and the Industry LA, among others. He premiered over thirty operatic works, collaborating with composers, including Thomas Adès, David Lang, Evan Ziporyn, Michael Gordon, Silvano Bussotti, Ellen Reid, David T. Little, Gerald Barry, Mohammed Fairouz, Louis Andriessen, Anne LeBaron, the late Gian-Carlo Menotti, Peter Eötvös, Tobias Picker, Kate Moore and Nick Urata of DeVotchKa.
His band Timur and the Dime Museum, "a punk-operatic spectacle" (LA Times), have performed on America's Got Talent; REDCAT Gala with Jack Black, and the PROTOTYPE Festival. In 2014, the band premiered an environmental rock-opera, Collapse, by Daniel Corral, produced by long-time collaborator Beth Morrison Projects, with shows at Redcat Theater, Miami Light Project, Operadagen Rotterdam and BAM 2015 Next Wave Festival. His upcoming solo projects are The Great Soviet Bucket, about his Soviet upbringing, for Miami Light Project directed by Emmy-nominated Sandra Powers, and rock-opera film Black Lodge by Grammy-nominated David T. Little for Opera Philadelphia. In 2023, he will premiere Klaus From Space, a sci-fi cabaret about Klaus Nomi, at O. Festival Rotterdam, commissioned by Klanggg Focus_Musiktheater Switzerland.
Timur is a co-creator of Silent Steppe Cantata by Anne LeBaron, a large-scale project between arts organizations of Kazakhstan and the United States. He closely collaborates with Brookledge Follies, a secret vaudevillian performance series in LA, curated by Erika Larsen of the Magic Castle. His voice is featured on the Hollywood soundtrack of Ruby Sparks and Hulu's The Great, and he appeared as a soloist on recordings released by Naxos USA, Milan Records, Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon and ANTI-. Timur is a producer of Clemency, a Sundance 2019 winning drama (starring Alfre Woodard), Richard Stanley's sci-fi horror Color Out of Space (starring Nicholas Cage), and a thriller Measure of Revenge (starring Melissa Leo and Bella Thorne.) Learn more at www.theoperaoftimur.com.
About Sandra Powers
Twice Emmy Award-nominated Peruvian-American director, editor, and writer Sandra Bambarén Powers is currently the lead editor of Disney's critically acclaimed series "Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur." Sandra has brought her creative expertise to numerous animated shows, including Nickelodeon's "Legend of Korra" and Disney's "Elena of Avalor." As an MFA graduate in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts, Sandra seamlessly blends her talents across various mediums. She wrote and directed the short film "Still Life After Death," premiered at the Sharjah Film Festival in 2021, now available on Amazon Prime. Her first short film "Autumn" was distributed by Ouat Media and screened at the International Festival Images Contre Nature (France), Wimbledon Shorts Film Festival (England) and EXiS Film Festival (South Korea).
Sandra has conceptualized and directed over fifteen music videos, bringing her distinct vision to Grammy-nominated bands like DeVotchKa and Timur and the Dime Museum. In 2023, she art directed the Grammy-nominated and critically-acclaimed film opera "Black Lodge," for Opera Philadelphia, and made her stage directorial debut with "The Great Soviet Bucket," produced by Beth Morrison Projects and funded by the National Performance Network for Miami Light Project. She is the creator and director of the upcoming Horror-themed Immersive show "Bardo" featuring over forty performers, as part of the 2024 premiere of "Black Lodge" with UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance.
Hailing from the sunny shores of Miami, Sandra is a tropi-goth Latina who delights in crafting whimsical, supernatural worlds.
About Michael VQ
Michael originally hails from Portland, Oregon, where he was raised in a working-class home by a health worker mother who was terrified that his artistic tendencies would leave him perpetually broke. These fears were not allayed when 20-something Michael became a professional street performer for three years, making music with garbage. Fortunately, he finagled a scholarship-fueled higher education, and now he is a (working) director, writer, filmmaker, and composer in New York. He holds degrees in directing and sound engineering, and has an amazing wife, Adina, and a beautiful 3-yr-old daughter, Zelda, who both tolerate his restless creative tendencies that have taken over the majority of the space in their home. Recent collaborators include Drake, Migos, Cardi B, The Flaming Lips, Du Yun, Daniil Trifonov, Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong'o, and many others. Michael also serves as the current Artistic Director for Titus Kaphar's film production company, REVOLUTION READY.
About Beth Morrison Projects
Founded in 2006 to support the work of living composers and their multi-media collaborators, Beth Morrison Projects encourages risk-taking, creating a structure for new work that is unique to the artist and allows them to feel safe to experiment and push boundaries. Noted as "the edge of innovation" (Opera News), Beth Morrison Projects is a "contemporary opera mastermind" (Los Angeles Times) and "its own genre" (OperaNews). Projects have been performed at numerous prestigious venues and festivals around the world including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Disney Hall, The Barbican, Lincoln Center, The Walker Art Center, The Beijing Music Festival, New Visions Arts Festival, The Holland Festival, O Festival Rotterdam and more. Recent and upcoming projects include works by composers Michael Gordon, Ted Hearne, Huang Ruo, David T. Little, Missy Mazzoli, Emma O'Halloran, Paola Prestini, Ellen Reid, Sarah Kirkland Snider and more, with directors Tom Creed, James Darrah, Rachel Dickstein, Lee Sunday Evans, Patricia McGregor, Zoe Aja Moore, Kevin Newbury, Matthew Ozawa, Karmina Silec, Jay Scheib, Michael VQ and Basil Twist.
*Photo courtesy of Beth Morrison Projects
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