TORN LIKE A ROSE

…birds of the world scatter through ashen valleys—looking for the sublime…

libretto: Ruth Margraff
direction: Gabriel Thom Pasculli  music: Graham Haynes with vocals by Haleh Abghari     
International Nišville Jazz Theatre Festival August 9-10, 2024 (Serbia)
  
featuring:  Gabriel Thom Pasculli, Malia’Kekia Nicolini, Jeysa de la Caridad and Anirudh Nair

choreography: Malia’Kekia Nicolini                  
 live vocal arrangement: Jeysa de la Caridad
            

inspired by Farid ud-Din Attar’s 12th century Conference of the Birds….
Libretto originally commissioned by Peggy Choy Dance Company for KumbleTheater (Brooklyn). 
Presented with Wender Collective and Opre Glasso! Special thanks to Chicago Dramatists, 
Peggy Myo-Young Choy, Jeysa Martinez, Chicago Dramatists, Logan Center (UChicago).
Paintings by Ruth Margraff

a Sufi-inspired opera w/composer Richard Marriott August 16-21, 2016 San Jose Stage Company (CA) awarded a National Endowment for the Arts "Artworks" commission; May 28, 2014 Theatre Association of Russia at the Boyarskiye Palaty (Moscow, Russia) dir Andrey Lyubimov (Aparte Theater); 2013 Link's Hall Shapiro Ctr w/Ta'ziyeh expert Mohammad Ghaffari. 

ISBN: 978-0-8222-2351-1 ©2009

VOICE OF THE DRAGON 2: Shaolin Secret Stories (Apollo Theater, NYC) Written by Ruth Margraff with composer Fred Ho, directed by Terry O'Reilly, martial arts choreography by Jose Figueroa, vocals by Marina Celander 

one of  6 martial arts operas created by Ruth Margraff & Fred Ho 1997-2014 see https://www.innova.mu/composers/ruth-margraff

DEADLY SHE-WOLF ASSASSIN AT ARMAGEDDAN (A SWORD BALLET) May 16-June 2, 2013 Ellen Stewart LaMama Theater (NYC); June 24-25, 2006 Mandel Theater @ Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA; April 29-30, 2005 NYSCA Individual Artist grant for The Japan Society city wide exhibit “Cool Japan: Otaku Strikes!”, choreography by Spinnin Ronin’s Tsuyoshi Kaseda, dir. Sonoko Kawahara with martial artists (NYC)

See--> 2:49 min. excerpt of VOICE OF THE DRAGON 2: Shaolin Secret Stories with photos from live performance at the Apollo theater soundstage here: https://vimeo.com/32748801 including track: "Li Wen Mao, The Peking Opera Orphan." The narrator’s vocal is recitative in vowels that extend in a Peking opera style of English. She inhabits the subjectivity of all the characters of the story, much like the chorus in Japanese Noh plays.

THE NEW YORK TIMES Arts Section Opera Review
"Crouching Leopard, Somersaulting Dragon"
By JON PARELES
Published: January 10, 2004

Long before martial-arts acrobatics became a staple of action movies, they were part of Chinese opera, and the composer and baritone saxphonist Fred Ho has decided they can be at the center of an American opera as well. His ''Voice of the Dragon 2: Shaolin Secret Stories'' is an opera without songs. But it has plenty of jazzy music from Mr. Ho's sextet, the Afro Asian Music Ensemble, and a nearly nonstop display of leaping, punching, somersaulting, pole-twirling, sword-wielding combat, choreographed for a dozen martial artists by Jose Figueroa. Its world premiere was presented by the World Music Institute's Interpretations series on Thursday night at Soundstage at the Apollo Theater, the small upstairs space at 253 West 125th Street in Harlem, where it continues through tonight.

''Voice of the Dragon'' tells tales of the Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese martial arts, and Mr. Ho plans to make it a trilogy. The first part, ''Once Upon a Time in Chinese America . . . The Martial Arts Epic,'' was presented in 2001 and depicted a battle at the temple against a traitorous female warrior, Gar Man Jang.

''Secret Stories'' is the prequel: coming-of-age stories for Gar Man Jang (played by Soomi Kim) and the Shaolin heroes who will go on to fight her. It is told, like the first installment, in narration written by Mr. Ho and Ruth Margraff that was delivered with melodramatic relish by an elegantly costumed narrator (Marina Celander); it was directed by Terry O'Reilly. The narrator shifted between high-flown storytelling and slangy retold dialogue, with glints of humor, while the martial artists rocketed across the stage.

''Secret Stories'' is about loyalty and self-renewal. Like the X-Men, the Shaolin heroes have varied talents. One has a crouching, feral attack because he was raised by leopards. One specializes in blades, one in wooden sticks, one in theatrical flamboyance. Each comes to a monastery as an orphan or outcast, chafes at the discipline but eventually accepts the teachings of the masters. As heroes in training, Tom Kaseda, Philip Silvera, Sekou and Scott Parker all made quick transitions from feigned clumsiness to taut precision.

There's also a girl, Ng Mui (Mei-Chiao Chiu), who grins and pouts with rubber-faced glee as she grows increasingly skillful. Gar Man Jang turns from Ng Mui's mentor to her jealous and vicious opponent, and as ''Secret Stories'' ends, Gar Man Jang and the narrator merge, moving in tandem and vowing to defy even the moon and sun.

Mr. Ho's music provided vamps and themes for each character, and it worked more as soundtrack and atmosphere than as foreground music. He often used closely harmonized saxophones akin to Charles Mingus's arrangements, but when melodies emerged, they often hinted at Chinese modes, and Royal Hartigan deployed Chinese cymbals, gongs and woodblocks alongside jazz drums. It was burly, foreboding music, using shifting meters to keep the tunes off balance and provide subliminal tension.

As a jazzy martial-arts pageant, it orchestrated some impressive razzle-dazzle.