BODY / SHADOW is an experimental opera with music by Paul J. Botelho; libretto, video, set design, by Brice Brown; choreography by Douglas Dunn; and visual media coordination by Steve Gibson.

This layered multi-media opera calls into question the coherence of the human body, highlighting its vulnerability and doubleness. What is more real: a body or its shadow?

There are seventeen dancers: fifteen perform a series of non-linear, one-minute acts, at times stretching screens - or skins – as they move throughout the space that activate different sections of a five-channel video; two other dancers act as fifth column free agents, invading the other dancers’ organized space, as well as Botelho’s actions, mischievously disturbing the logic of the performance. The video is a hallucinatory collage of shadows, still and moving images, and colors. When projected onto the dancers and the stretched screens, they become a reverse shadow theater. Botelho circulates among the dancers, performing vocal improvisations as well as the libretto to his set score. He carries a large bag that doubles as a second body, or shadow. In the bag are are an array of different objects Botelho uses as he moves through the space.

BODY / SHADOW is presented in the round; audience members are encouraged to quietly circulate during the performance and experience a different point of view.

This performance-based opera is accompanied by a limited edition hard-bound publication featuring text, images, and CD.

Click here for a PDF of the Playbill