GRAMMY-winning composer Steven Mackey and Obie Award-winning librettist Rinde Eckert have completed a new opera for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
The work was written in less than two months and will be entitled “Moon Tea.”
The work tells the story of the historic moment when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, invited the Apollo 11 astronauts to Buckingham Palace for tea, fresh from their triumphant moon landing in 1969.
During the pandemic, we have seen no shortage of socially distanced dance on screen, some of it intimate and slapdash, some of it panoramic and refined — and all of it, for its sheer collective persistence, heartening. But the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s “Breathing at the Boundaries” is the first dance work this year I’ve encountered that both responds to this moment and transcends it.
On Tuesday, December 29, 2020 the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (MJDC) premiered an extraordinary dance, music, spoken word and visual art film titled Breathing at the Boundaries, choreographed by Artistic Director Margaret Jenkins in collaboration with the MJDC dancers. It is a brilliant example of several incredibly talented artists from four countries uniting to overcome extreme challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic to produce a work that exceeds one’s expectations. This is the best pandemic era dance or art film that I have seen thus far, addressing our current situation while going far beyond its limitations.
“You must watch this. It is mesmerizing, beautiful, emotional, mysterious and so powerful. Margaret Jenkins and her brilliant collaborators - dancers, composers and video artist - have created a masterpiece for our time. And it will stand the test of time.”
“If you’re looking for a way to BREATHE into the new year....this is a gorgeous gift from Paul Dresher Ensemble, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Rinde Eckert, and the mind-blowing vision, images, projections, and cinematography of Alex V. Nichols. Watching this felt to me as close to a THEATRICAL experience as I’ve had in these crazy covid-adapting times. It felt like they discovered a new art form altogether.”
“This mesmerizing work is a powerful testament to what artists do - no matter the challenges. Once again, I am gratefully reminded that we are human, we are connected, we falter, we catch one another, we breathe through and beyond.”
“Breathing is absolutely a mature work—that is, full of wonderfully-crafted moments and meticulous attention to form, rather than flashy effects. I jumped up off the couch and shouted at the ending, and I actually had tears in my eyes. That’s not something that happens every day. Or even every year. ”
