Street Art Opera

We have a story - to be told on the streets, for the streets - combining myths of the land with the grime of social unrest, brought together in opera.  This story is ‘Yr Edau Coch’ (The Red Thread).  Three lead artists Sinna One, Milly Jackdaw, Cyrenaur, trained in muralism, street art, storytelling, fine art practices, law and social entrepreneurship, with a desire to work as part of a broader creative team to bring Yr Edau Coch to life.  

Following from the inspiration of ‘opera as activism’, we intend to bring opera to streets and walls, telling of its mythical, social, legal and political make-up, celebrating its important patchwork of histories.  

The origins of the Italian meaning of opera, is ‘work’, and we intend our piece to bring its viewers back to this more accessible understanding of the musical form, through these grassroots myths and events, workers’ rights and power, away from the elitism of the operatic form that is known today.

We will depict these stories, both mythical and social, through characters in paste-up animation through stop-frame animation; or similarly through leaving a trail of tiny cut outs leading its people to the screening, which then can come alive through the animation.

The paste-up method, where literally cutouts of illustrations, lettering and prints, are pasted to walls, allows for the narrative and story to be site specific.

Written by Milly Jackdaw for the call, is a story weaving together, local folk and fairy tales, histories, and Mabinogi myths enchanting the deprivation caused through years of extraction and domination of the lands surrounding Bangor, both quarried and otherwise. A love story with a shapeshifting goatwomen named Jenny, who moves from mountain goat to young girl, and back again, drawing a local young shepherd across the mountains and into Bangor, with a red thread, through the social unrest of the quarries and to the empty shops of the high street, to bring them to life as the fairy folk are awoken once again.  The tale flows through dancing, merriment (raving even, as happens in the mountains!), as well as depicting the tragedy of loss within culture and nature, with an ultimate ending as the town is revitalised as the creatures of the land (such as pigs and bears and wolves as those found within the Mabinogi, and other local stories of peacocks, cats, goats, all enjoying the streets), join with the people to paint the town in all its glory.

This opera is a drama of transformation that tells us of contemporary times; myth and social unrest are intertwining to teach us of where we can go next, and hope for societal change.