Peformance Grant
2020 Fall Grantee
Stephanie Fleischmann and Christina Campanella
Composer Christina Campanella and playwright/librettist Stephanie Fleischmann’s collaboration with director Mallory Catlett bring us THE VISITATION. Inspired by the appearance of a one-antlered deer in Harlem in 2016, this site-specific sound walk is a meditation on the presence of the mythic in the everyday and the uneasy relationship between the built environment and the natural world. An urban odyssey in search of the collective memory of the deer’s sojourn in Harlem’s Jackie Robinson Park, THE VISITATION (produced by HERE Arts Center, premiering April 23, 2021) takes us on a hunt not just for the deer, but for Artemis, goddess of nature—absent from our contemporary lives. Geo-located songs conjure a handful of encounters with the buck, experienced by a park gardener, a weeping pharmacist, a neighborhood teenager and others. A soundscape threaded through with the ethereal voice of the deer navigates interior landscapes and terrain ranging from far-reaching urban vistas to a dense canopy of trees, basketball courts, playgrounds, a housing project. THE VISITATION is a visceral sonic experience, a journey through our longing for the solace of the wild.
After the live premiere, audience members will download GESSO, a geo-locational app via a link sent to them by HERE, to access sound and image via headphones and smartphone/ipad and make the journey on their own schedule. One evening each week the walk will culminate in a physically distanced, IRL, site-specific scene. Available for download indefinitely, the aural experience will also be accessible from anywhere in the world.
Stephanie Fleischmann is a playwright and librettist whose texts serve as blueprints for intricate three-dimensional sonic and visual worlds. She has been called a “neo Emily Dickinson” (Backstage) and “a writer who can conjure something between a dreamy road movie and a theatrical coming-of-age tale, and who can piece these elements together in the style of a jagged ballad for guitar” (Chicago Sun Times). Her “lyrical monologues” (New York Times), “smart” opera libretti (Opera News), plays, and music-theater works have been performed internationally and across the United States. Selected plays/music-theater: Sound House (New Georges/the Flea); Niagara (Daniel Fish, Hudson Hall); Red Fly/Blue Bottle (Christina Campanella, Mallory Catlett; HERE; EMPAC; Noorderzon Festival, NL; Exit Festival, Paris); The Secret Lives of Coats (Campanella, RedEye. Minneapolis); The Sweetest Life (music by Saskia Lane; New Victory LabWorks, BRIC TK; Tally Ho (Round House, London); Eloise & Ray (New Georges). Developed c/o Mass MoCA, Vineyard, Soho Rep, Synchronicity, Birmingham Rep (UK), the Public. Opera libretti commissioned by: Wien Modern (Vienna) & Zeitraume Festival Basel, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Dawn Upshaw/Brentano Quartet, Pittsburgh Opera, and others. Grants and awards include: Venturous Theater Fund; Howard Foundation, Tennessee Williams and 3 NYFA Fellowships; 3 NYSCA Individual Artist Commissions; NEA Opera/Music-Theater; Frederick Loewe Award; MAPFund. Residencies: New Dramatists; HARP; American Lyric Theater; Macdowell.
Please visit Stephanie’s Instagram, Facebook and her website for more information.
Christina Campanella is a composer, vocalist and sound artist who works across disciplines. Her “moody, driving music” (New York Times) and “ethereal voice” (BUST Magazine) provide the mainspring for her work for theater, film, concert and installation. Fusing songwriting and contemporary composition with aural design, Campanella weaves ambient textures and a dreamy avant-pop sensibility into cinematic soundscapes and deconstructed art songs. She is a recipient of 3 NYSCA Individual Artist Commissions in Film, Media and New Technologies, and is a Harvestworks sponsored artist.
Recent work: ALL THINGS FROM ZERO (concert-installation), commissioned by The Great Learning Orchestra with funds from the Swedish Cultural Council (Royal Academy of Fine Art, Stockholm); FIND ME (12:1 installation), HERE Arts Center; NO WAKE (live cine-concert), Fylkingen (Stockholm); LIGHTHOUSE 40°N, 73°W (headphone installation), NY Electronic Art Festival; PARTS ARE EXTRA (with filmmaker Peter Norrman), Fylkingen, Simultan (Romania); BREATHE (with sculptor Arthur Ganson), Museum at MIT (Cambridge); RED FLY/BLUE BOTTLE (music-theater, writer Stephanie Fleischmann, directed by Mallory Catlett), HERE, EMPAC (Troy), Noorderzon (Groningen), EXIT Festival (Paris); THE SECRET LIVES OF COATS (music-theater, Ms. Fleischmann), Red Eye (Minneapolis).
Campanella has performed in downtown theater and independent film since 1998 (works by Richard Foreman, Phil Soltanoff, Theodora Skipitares, Jim Findlay and others), played keyboards with various NY bands, and sings in the operas of composer/sound artist Joe Diebes.
Please visit Christina’s Instagram, Facebook and her website for more information.