Creative Concept & Composition by Monica Lim & Mindy Meng Wang
Dramaturg: Ophelia Huang
Animation Artist: Rel Pham
Set and Lighting Design: Jenny Hector
Choreographer: Carol Brown
Guzheng: Mindy Meng Wang
Electronics: Monica Lim
Vocals: YuTien Lin
Percussion: Alexander Meagher
Cello: Nils Hobiger
Costumes: Leonas Panjaitan
Sound & Video System Design: Nick Roux
Performers: Wendy Feng and Ong Wen Chen
Stage Manager: Micah Patston

Special thanks to Dermot Tutty for advice on vocals

Commissioned by AsiaTOPA and Arts Centre Melbourne with support from Creative Australia, City of Melbourne, Playking Foundation, APRA Amcos Art Music Fund, Abbotsford Convent and University of Melbourne.

Video by Non Studio.

OPERA FOR THE DEAD
祭歌

Wander through an immersive music and visual experience.

A contemporary Chinese cyber-opera that reimagines the connection between life and death.

Opera for the Dead (祭歌) harnesses old and new technologies to explore the connection between life and death.

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Created by award-winning composer and Guzheng artist Mindy Meng Wang and sound technologist and composer Monica Lim, Opera for the Dead (祭歌) is inspired by Chinese mourning rituals but speaks to our common experiences of death, mourning and ancestry.

This multi-artform performance combines live musicians and singers with electronic processing, ambisonic sound, 3D animation and movement. Audiences are invited to move freely through the performance space as it transforms from stage to cinema to dance floor, journeying between the real and imaginary, past and present.

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Opera for the Dead (祭歌) examines the many contradictions that exist in our traditions around death: the tension between spirituality and materialism, the eternal versus digital convenience, and the contrast between our experience of grief and the way it is performed. This epic new work highlights the beauty within anguish and finds humour in the macabre.