When in 2005 Godelieve Schrama was introduced to the Music of Param Vir she immediately fell for its magical and fairy-like quality. She invited him to write a small scale music theatre piece using the Octopus Ensemble strength - soprano, harp and percussion instruments – as a basis. Vir accepted the invitation and proposed to add a baritone, wind instruments and a string instrument.

 

Also, he proposed to work with the Irish playwright David Rudkin to provide the libretto. The two worked together in the past on Param Vir’s opera Broken Strings which gathered international acclaim.

 

In search of an interesting subject that would suit a small scale music theatre setting Vir and Rudkin came across a collection of native American legends, one of which struck their imagination.

 

 

This piece is inspired by a Native American legend which is here adapted and presented with the blessing of the Elders of the people who tell it. It inhabits an ancient elemental landscape, where men and women experience themselves as creatures of the natural world, and live in interaction with it.

 

At a wedding, a young married woman and a young man from outside her tribe see each other and fall instantly and irrationally in love. Each feels more and more powerfully drawn toward the other. But to reach each other, she has to leave everything and everyone she knows, and journey toward him across a difficult and hostile earth; he has to confront negative demons that rise up within him to inhibit him. In taking these risks, they each release in themselves a wonderful life-giving power.

 

Two ‘ordinary’ people thus become remarkable. The story is a challenge to our contemporary ‘rationalist’ culture and its threatened destruction of the natural world.

 

Black Feather Rising will be premiered on October 24th 2008 at De Toneelschuur - Haarlem (NL), and tour further throughout the Netherlands. Performances abroad are currently subject of negotiations.

 

Please visit Stichting Octopus for more detailed information on Black Feather Rising its musicians and the tour schedule.

 

 

Download promotional text (in Dutch)

 

back to activities