La MaMa Umbria: WEATHER#
Originally presented onstage at Teatro Romano in Spoleto, Italy's Festival Dei Due Mondi 2014.
Composed by American writer, composer, and director Elizabeth Swados on the text of Filippo Consales.
Click this link to enter the 3D room for the weather event: https://arium.events/weather
For best viewing experience, use your computer to navigate–Chrome browser suggested. Please make sure there are no other applications running on your computer. You can also experience the rooms with a VR headset and headphones.
Weather is one of the last works composed by American writer, composer, and director Elizabeth Swados on the text of Filippo Consales. The goal of this “dramatic oratorio,” as Swados defined it, is to use music and theater as tools to raise public awareness on urgent issues related to climate change.
Originally presented onstage at Teatro Romano in Spoleto, Italy's Festival Dei Due Mondi 2014, WEATHER# is now being produced as an online immersive experience through an international collaboration involving partner organizations and artists from Italy, France, United Kingdom, United States, Korea, and Mexico.
With sounds and rhythms that mix the atmospheres of western music and world music, the composition collects a great variety of stories, scientific descriptions, newscasts and mythological narrations that tell of storms, destructions, rebirth and beauty. This kaleidoscopic vision is a kind of hymn to the force of nature and at the same time a warning that wants to encourage people to reflect on the environmental emergencies that our planet is facing. An alternation of instrumental parts and songs invoke different stories and environments, independent of each other.
The audience will be able to watch WEATHER# in an online 360° space, composed of 12 rooms, like the months of the year, each including one song with the related video, animations and a series of references that help contextualize the topic of the songs. Navigating through the online space and interacting with the different visual and musical contents of the opera, the audience will have the chance to uncover the stories as well as the scientific or cultural references behind those stories.
WEATHER# will open to the public online on Saturday January 30th with an opening ceremony involving international partners.
La MaMa Umbria International
La MaMa Umbria International provides artists from around the world with residency programs and intensive workshops. For over 25, La MaMa Umbria has fostered cross-cultural and international exchanges and creative collaborations. Hundreds of artists have found Umbria to be a space that is beautiful, spiritually enriching, welcoming, and open to bold artistic experiments.
Online Happenings
Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub, La MaMa is exploring ways to respond creatively to a situation that is potentially changing how we gather as a community in our theatres. La MaMa is working with CultureHub to provide online streaming of select productions and events on Howlround Theatre Commons.