Sun Wu-Kong is a character in Chinese lore that I grew up with, so it is of particular interest to me that Alexis Gideon will be reinventing it in rock opera form. This will be showing at Disjecta at 8:00pm on September 3rd.
Check out this description:
A one-hour multimedia video opera based on the 16th-century Chinese novel The Journey to the West, Video Musics IIjoins the brightest lights of contemporary animation (Becca Taylor (Punk Planet, Arthur); Cynthia Star (Coraline, Moral Orel, Robot Chicken); Ezra Claytan Daniels (The Changers and Black Violet)) with the most promising talents of contemporary music (Rachel Blumberg (M Ward, Arch Cape); Cory Gray (Norfolk & Western, Carcrashlander);Shelley Short (Hush)) to create an aural and visual universe that gleefully transcends both media. Is it film or music, high art or pop? Gideon’s work would fit snugly at either the Whitney Biennial or SXSW, which is to say it cannot be contained, really, by either venue. Marked throughout by the ambition, commitment to detail, and refusal to settle that have earned Gideon a cult following on both sides of the pond.
Judging by the company Gideon keeps, this is going to be amazing, musically, visually, and all around creatively.
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