{"id":17782,"date":"2025-05-21T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=17782"},"modified":"2025-05-19T14:45:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T18:45:32","slug":"new-series-clifford-family-innovator-in-residence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/05\/21\/new-series-clifford-family-innovator-in-residence\/","title":{"rendered":"New Series: Clifford Family Innovator in Residence\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Francesca Zambello workshops her opera-ballet,\u00a0O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky<\/em>.\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In late February, Francesca Zambello \u201978 arrived on campus with a story idea, an artistic team, and a bevy of performers. They had five days to workshop her new project, and the world-renowned opera and theater director was happy to return to Colgate, where the seeds of her artistic career were planted. Zambello is the first to hold the title of Clifford Family Innovator in Residence, and the residency is a gift for her to spend time creating, as well as to share that process with students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zambello had worked with all the assembled creatives before, both in her current role as the artistic director for the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in her former role as the artistic and general director emerita of the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y. This time, the team began developing a new performance piece that blends opera with classical and modern dance elements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the week\u2019s end, they had sketched out the essential parts of a narrative about artist Georgia O\u2019Keeffe; her husband, photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz; and socialite and arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Librettist and dramaturg Kelley Rourke, choreographer Jessica Lang, and two-time Grammy Award\u2013winning composer Christopher Tin set to work right away, creating in an iterative fashion. As librettist, Rourke selected the key scenes and assembled them in a way that tells a satisfying story. Before arriving on campus, Tin and Rourke had begun some of the arias, but during the workshop, they further evolved the relationships between the three characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team\u2019s first task was to identify how to develop the characters through song and movement. It quickly became apparent that each character would be represented by a vocalist and dancer pairing. While the singers voiced the characters they played, the dancers represented the characters\u2019 souls. The couples were formed: mezzo soprano Michelle Mariposa and dancer Eve Jacobs as O\u2019Keeffe, tenor Nicholas Huff and dancer Milan Misko as Stieglitz, and mezzo soprano Winona Martin and dancer Rachel Secrest as Luhan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As composer, Tin\u2019s mission was to develop a unique sound for each character through music \u2014 highlighting the artistic dedication of O\u2019Keeffe; the frenetic, distinctly American energy of Luhan; and a sophisticated, more European sensibility for Stieglitz. Lang conveyed O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s artworks and the landscape of the American West through choreography, which Rourke said furthered the narrative in ways the typical tools of opera cannot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis week has been a ferocious pace of working on new music, new dance, and new words,\u201d Zambello said. \u201cBut things don\u2019t work without a love story, and with love of art and love of friendship, this is a different kind of love story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a visual and auditory telling of the relationship between two women who found personal and artistic freedom in the American West. As operas typically feature male protagonists, it is unconventional for this production to center on women and their friendship.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the final night, the group gave two performances of O\u2019Keeffe: Kiss the Sky <\/em>in the new Experimental Exhibition and Performance Space in Bernstein Hall. Two students, Summer Davies \u201928 and Josie Martin \u201928, were selected to dance in the showcase and others were involved as assistants, technicians, and through classwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team left campus with the elements of their production \u2014 a framework that they will continue to develop. One day, they will perform this novel mixture of opera and ballet on a larger stage, giving theatergoers \u201ca new way of seeing things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Clifford Family Innovator in Residence is made possible through the generosity of J. Christopher Clifford \u201967, H\u201911, Keena Clifford P\u201993, and Carrie Clifford \u201993, and their support of Colgate\u2019s Arts, Creativity, and Innovation Initiative. The residency will bring innovators from across different fields in the arts, entrepreneurship, pedagogy, and technology to share their knowledge and work with the Colgate community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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