Thirty years after photographer and visual artist Robert Mapplethorpe’s untimely death, we still cannot turn away from the compelling emotional complexity of his influential body of work. In this new performance piece, music, poetry, and photography come together in a theatrical context, exploring the impact of the work Mapplethorpe had on the lives and careers of composer and Cincinnati native Bryce Dessner (The National) and librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle.Their exposure to the explosive protests surrounding Mapplethorpe’s work rooted a lifelong kinship to his pivotal body of work and its power to upend our beliefs about black/white, female/male, queer/straight, art/porn, sacred/profane, classical/contemporary, low art/high art, and political/personal.
This major collaboration with director Daniel Fish, featuring the poetry of Tuttle, Essex Hemphill, Patti Smith, and others as well as the choral group Roomful of Teeth, revisits the formative impact of Mapplethorpe’s work, inviting the audience to simultaneously experience Dessner’s music against the most electrifying and divisive words and images the world has ever known.
Through music and large-scale projection of Mapplethorpe’s images, this unprecedented work allows an audience to peer inside Mapplethorpe’s bold, voracious view of how human beings look, touch, feel, hurt and love one another.
This work may contain a frank discussion of sexuality and may include images depicting sexuality and nudity.A world premiere co-production and co-commission of University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
