Aureate Darkness is an Experimental Music Theatre work composed by Jue Wang for trombonist William Lang and 12 channel surrounding sound. It was directed by Mei Ann Teo, premiered in New York City on December 13th, 2015, and was later turned into a film work by Aleksey Nuzhov.

Team of artists:

Composer: Jue Wang ; Performer :William Lang; Director: Mei Ann Teo; 

Projection Design: Aleksey Nuzhnov; Set Design: Alison Clemente;

Light Design: Jennifer Reiser; Tech Engineer:  Adam Mirza 

 

 

 

 

It’s a Secret Performance #1 is an hour-long composition for 2 singers (soprano and baritone), 4 instrumentalists (flute, violin, trombone and bass clarinet), and live electronics. It was premiered at New York University on October 10th-12th, 2014.

The project deals with our increasing confusion over the relationship between public and private identities. At what point should the private become public? And to what or whose end? This dilemma is presented through a series of encounters within an immersive theater space. Performers and audience members alike inhabit a semi-public, ambiguous space of reflected memories and dreams…

Two narratives run through the show. One witnesses the Alice James, real-life sister to William and Henry, of Susan Sontag’s last play: Alice in Bed, in her painful, mute rejection of her famous family’s public life. Here, enframed, Alice appears and stands forth, casting her gaze like that of a portrait out upon the viewer. Alice fades in and out. As she withdraws, the 19th century bourgeois public sphere begins to crackle with energy of digital technology. The second narrative traces the imprint of technology upon our thoughts and utterances. Private thought now dances along electric circuits like the digital effervescence of memory.

Team of artists:

Thomas Buckner – Baritone

Mark Dover – Clarinet

Marina Kifferstein – Violin

Margaret Lancaster – Flute

William Lang – Trombone

Adam Mirza – Composer

Alysse Padilla – Narrator

Jue Wang  – Composer

Kryssy Wright – Lighting & Staging design

Other Collaborators and Advisors

Xue Yu ; Mei Ann Teo; Bai Feng; Claudia Carrera; Vasko Dukovski