Welcome to The Sea!

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Be sure to join Forest Collective for our next performance Labyrinth, a new multi-room immersive dance-opera-piano concerto by Evan J Lawson and Daniel Szesiong Todd, playing at Abbotsford Convent 6 - 10 February as part of Midsumma Festival.

The Sea is presented by Forest Collective, BK Opera & Abbotsford Convent.

Forest Collective acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we live, meet, create, and perform this performance, Wadawurrung Country.

We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and extend our respects to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, past and present. We recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs, and relationship with the land. We recognise Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of this nation.

A message from composer and artistic director, Evan J Lawson.

How do you write music that is coercive, corruptive, and seductive? This was the central issue I faced when I commenced work on this beautiful and strange piece.

Poet Nicole Butcher and I had been discussing a project that explored the notions of power, corruption, and trauma for many years until I finally decided to write the score about a year ago. Nicole provided me with various rewrites over the years, and during this time we discussed how the piece could attempt to depict two dual experiences of someone living in an abusive relationship – how they could overcome it and flourish or find themselves utterly overwhelmed by the situation. We have endeavoured to evoke both of these feelings within the composition.

We also wanted to keep the subject matter open to interpretation both by Kate and the performers but also the audience. We didn't want to pigeon hole the action of the work, but allow the whole creative team to discuss and workshop ideas around the content of the work.

Throughout this process, we were consistently drawn to analogies of water and the sea, making it a natural focus for the work. I hope that the music flows and washes over you, reminiscent of the waves and foam you battle during a blustery winter swim.

The composition is structured into 5 scenes, with a prelude, and 2 interludes. The first of these interludes is the 'cage interlude,' depicting the central person's sense of being trapped, while the second illustrates this person's experience at the hands of violence, both physical and psychological, and their inner anger. The 5 scenes feature moments for all 6 singers, with musical structures referencing baroque music and operatic tropes, such as the opening chorus and the second scene where the two women's voices act in a sort of mirror-like aria, echoing each other. This idea of mirroring and echoing is woven throughout the work. I am captivated by this concept of repetition and duality, both in the music and in the experience of the characters.

This work delves into difficult subject matter, but I hope you find it interesting, arresting, and intriguing.

A message from director and BK Opera artistic director Kate Millett.

It is always an honour and a fear to direct a brand new work, and to be entrusted with presenting someone's piece for the first time. When Evan Lawson approached me about staging The Sea, I was delighted to accept. This collaboration, between BK Opera and Forest Collective, is exciting and just feels right. Both companies have a deep-seated mission to create meaningful and modern works of classical music, presenting them for a 21st-century audience.

When I first heard snippets of the music, I instantly fell in love. The music is raw, complex, unexpected, and beautiful. This work, representing the complexities, trauma, and overwhelming nature of domestic violence, hits close to my personal experience, as I know it does for many people. This opera does not have named characters, based around a chorus, so I used that to move away from the idea of an individual monster, showing the overarching role that society in general plays in developing these broken relationships.

I know the subject manner will be confronting to the audience, especially in such an intimate manner. Unfortunately, it remains a deeply important issue to stay in our collective consciousness. I have to give huge thanks to Evan and all the team at Forest Collective for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful work of art.