Skidmore Theater Announces OYSTER For One Night Only

Skidmore Theater and MDOCS has announced for one night only a special guest presentation of OYSTER, a multimedia opera about iconic folklorist Alan Lomax and his Cantometrics system of categorizing world music, set in the lull between the McCarthy era and the advancing information technology age. Written by acclaimed composer and multidisciplinary artist Joe Diebes and directed by award-winning returning guest artist Phil Soltanoff, OYSTER is sponsored by MDOCS, part of the semester-long series Cosmic Tones: Mapping the Musical Multiverse in Documentary, and co-sponsored by Skidmore Theater.

Synopsis:In OYSTER, Alan Lomax gives a lecture on his ethnomusicological findings in a sung-spoken and rhythmic style, accompanied by prepared piano and electronics. He brings the audience on a "world tour," evoked through brightly color-coded videos, in which BOTCH Ensemble performs songs based on the data for each of the nine regions into which Lomax divided the world. Meanwhile, live onstage, Christina Campanella, Michael Chinworth, and Saori Tsukada piece together Lomax's life, parsing and scanning an extensive, recently declassified FBI file. Theater director Phil Soltanoff infuses the work with his signature physical language of quotidian movements and geometric patterns. This humorous and probing new experimental opera begs the question: how much can we really know of people and culture through computer profiling? Embedded in this 1966-set performance are nascent hints at a culture careening towards the slicker algorithmizing of all facets of life.

Tickets: $12 general admission and $8 for students and senior citizens. Reserve tickets at theater.skidmore.edu or by contacting our Box Office: boxoffice@skidmore.edu