Silk Moth (2019)

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Video Art  for Opera - Grimeborn at Arcola Theatre

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Complex layers, fragile webs, flesh and flora are spun together using microscope footage, Living Slides, silent films and vintage nature documentaries to create a world of dark complicity and coercive threads that draw you in to a seemingly safe cocoon that eventually destroys you.

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A woman, alone, wrestles with the part she played in her daughter’s downfall. Is she vulnerable? Or complicit? Bushra El-Turk‘s hard-hitting, contemporary opera Silk Moth is presented alongside compositions from Liza Lim and Cassandra Miller in a new production by London chamber orchestra Ruthless Jabiru. A stellar cast of singers and conducted ensemble weave together Arabic and Western musical traditions, examining the complex tragedies of honour crime, family violence, and female (dis)empowerment in Britain and beyond.

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Music by Bushra El-Turk, Liza Lim and Cassandra Miller

Libretto by Eleanor Knight

Director: Heather Fairbairn
Designer: Charlotte Henery
Lighting Designer: Sean Gleason

Music Director Kelly Lovelady
Video artist: Sapphire Goss

Gabriel Finn: Production Manager

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Shira Agmon - Ensemble

Sophie Atalar - Ensemble

Aivale Cole - Ensemble

Karim Jabri - Father/Ensemble

Mona Khalili - Daughter/Ensemble

Camille Maalawy - Mother

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Chamber Orchestra - Ruthless Jabiru

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