« Unknown, I Live With You » is an opera installation for female voices, a string quartet and live electronics composed by Katarina Glowicka and directed by Krystian Lada. Inspired by Afghan female writers’ poems, this project amplifies the basic human right to freely tell one’s own story. This new creation fuses the dramatic power of opera with the impact of socially engaged art in an unusual, immersive format. It involves opera singers, dancers, a string quartet and live electronica in a staged opera installation in the architecture of a former chapel in Brussels – Les Brigittines – Playhouse for Movement.

In Taliban-held Afghanistan, writing, and any form of musical expression, has been considered a crime. The poems by three contemporary Afghan female writers are at the heart of this project. Roya, Meena Z., Fattemah AH and Freshta are participants of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP). AWWP was founded in 2009 in order to encourage Afghani women to develop their voices and write their own narratives, striving to change the narrative of women’s rights in Afghanistan in the process. Through AWWP, Afghan women have a direct voice in the world, not filtered through husbands, relatives or the media. Most of the writers participate in the project secretly. Their poems are raw, often devastating, and always brave in depicting the live under the niqab. Their writings convey a very universal story – the one of the female voice that strive for freedom in the patriarchal society.
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CAST: Raehann Bryce-Davis, mezzo soprano (singer) // Lucia Lucas (singer) // Małgorzata Walewska (singer) // Katarina Glowicka (live electronics performer) // Baroque & Beyond String Quartet: Tomasz Aleksander Plusa (first violin) // Ola Kwiatkowska (second violin) // Pietro Battistoni (viola) // Natania Hoffman (cello)

CREW: Freshta (writer) // Fattemah AH (writer) // Meena Z. (writer) // Roya (writer) // Katarina Glowicka (composer) // Krystian Lada (stage director & concept) // Natalia Kitamikado (costumes & set designer) // Maarten Warmerdam (lighting designer) // Pedro Beriso (musical director) // Pim Dinghs (video designer & stage director’s assistant) // Alison Dujardin (subtitles operator)

Produced by The Airport Society, Nuit Blanche Brussels, Les Brigittines – Playhouse for Movement. In collaboration with Polish Culture.
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The Airport Society is a Brussels based cooperative of artists and game-changers that initiates projects at the intersection of opera and social engagement. By developing projects outside of the traditional opera production schemes, The Airport Society questions the usual power and resources distribution in the field, and explores alternative strategies for opera creation, production and presentation. > www.theairportsociety.com