Place D'Youville
5:00(without intermission)
Uninterrupted performance
Early Morning Opera (Los Angeles (United States))
Holoscenes is a major performance installation enacted in an immense rectangular glass box in the centre of the city. We see scenes of daily life: someone reading the newspaper and sipping their coffee, someone else washing the floors and windows, playing the guitar or making their bed. Suddenly the set transforms into a giant aquarium as 13,000 litres of water fill it within minutes, submerging the performers inside. Some of them try, in vain, to ignore the situation or escape, but the majority struggle to adapt to the new reality as best they can.
The piece is a clear poetic interpretation of how climate change may lead to a rapid rise in sea levels. Like the performers, we are adapting little by little in spite of ourselves. The threat is real but, despite scientists’ warnings, it still seems abstract or far off. Or perhaps it is our tremendous capacity for adaptation that is ultimately desensitizing us? The performance, both fascinating and terrifying, makes you viscerally feel the danger, so that it’s no longer just an intellectual exercise. Hold your breath…
Holoscenes is a contemplative, sensory experience with no lines, text or dialogue. The title refers to the current geological era, called the Holocene, which has been going on for 11,000 years now. The uninterrupted performance takes five hours in total, and each new version combines four out of seven segments. Each segment plays with variations on the same theme and lasts about an hour. There is no chronological order within or between segments. It is an open‑access work, free of charge, without any reserved spots.
