Written and with Music by Caroline Louise Miller

Directed by Laine Rettmer

A psychedelic tale of transformation in which a woman at a difficult life crossroads deliriously travels dream worlds transforming into mysterious organisms and commune with natural movements of the universe.

Composer & Libretto: Caroline Louise Miller

Duration: 17min

Instrumentation: actor, electronics

Director: Laine Rettmer

Premiere: 2020

Status: Premiered

PRESS

…full of surprises, richly lyrical one moment and a swirl of gnarly percussive grooves the next. Childlike rhymes sound with the ring of innocence through their tonal, hymn-like simplicity, while the pitch bends that follow are otherworldly. Throughout, each cozy, familiar sound is situated within an eerie frame.” BOSTON CLASSICAL REVIEW

HISTORY

11/13-12/13/2020 - Presented in the Guerilla Underground video on demand streaming platform. Part of the “Dreamwalker Digital” program.

ABOUT THE FILM

A woman finds herself at a difficult life crossroads, names herself “Ofelia”, and embarks on a poetic inner journey. Dreaming that she is drowning, she contemplates biological cycles of life and death, embodying three organisms along the way: a tropical bioluminescent fungi, a moth that drinks the tears of sleeping birds, and a giant palm tree that fruits once in hundred years, then collapses upon itself and dies.

The use of the name “Ofelia,” an altered spelling of “Ophelia,” is a feminist rewriting and extrapolation of Shakespeare’s (in)famous female character. Whereas Shakespeare’s Ophelia is defined by men and the control they exert over her life, Ofelia is a fully-realized person with a complex inner world that is poetic, intellectual, spiritual, and scientific; and she is wholly free to commune with movements of the universe.

ABOUT THE COMPOSER

Caroline Louise Miller’s practice explores affect, tactility, biomusic, and the materiality of digital production. She often works with theater, electronics, film, and sonic worlds that bridge musical genres. Her most current project is a concert-installation with Alarm Will Sound and video artist Stefani Byrd that explores intersections of movement, stasis, and desire with abandoned industrial structures. Caroline’s music appears across the U.S. and internationally, and she has most recently been honored with grants and awards from Chamber Music America, the Matt Marks Impact Fund, Transient Canvas, and Guerilla Opera. In 2018 she won the ISB/David Walter composition competition for Hydra Nightingale, created with improvisor/bassist Kyle Motl. Caroline also works as a curator, and organized multimedia concerts at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography between 2012–2017. In 2019 she launched concerts focused on science-fiction and surrealism. She holds a Ph.D in Music from UC San Diego, and will be Assistant Professor of Sonic Arts at Portland State University, in Portland, Oregon, beginning in winter 2021.