«Yokko the White Butterfly»

Opera-ballet «Yokko the White Butterfly»  

OPERA BALLET 

«Yokko the White Butterfly»

Appropriate for age 10+ 

Duration: 1 hour 20 minutes 

Director: Maria de Valukhoff 

«Yokko the White Butterfly» is the quintessential audio-visual embodiment of the aesthetics of Eastern culture, where medieval Japanese erotic poetry and meditative sounds of traditional Japanese instruments harmoniously intertwine in a modern cut of spectacular video projections and distinctive scenography. This is a story about the influence of the East on modernity, about people turning again to ancient practices, to the philosophy through which they strive to better understand the body, more easily accepting the finitude of being. 

The libretto is based on a portion of a cycle of 101 erotic tankas Scarlet Ink on Black Silk, a book written by the Japanese poetess Yokko Irinati who lived in the Heian period (Ninth to Twelfth centuries), translated by Natalia Bogatova and Irina Ermakova. «Yokko the White Butterfly» is how Irinati sometimes signed her poems. The cycle was written in the tradition of the anthology of Japanese poetry known as Manyoshu, the dedication to flowers, trees, fog, rain, and love ballads. Additionally, one of the plot lines of the libretto has been borrowed from the story "Tattoo" by Tanizaki Junichiro (1910). 

‘Three women, three ages, three loves’ is the core motif of the spectacle, a theme of time, its relativity and nonlinearity, static in eternity and transience in the present. It is based on the concept of time from the Buddhist practice of Kalachakra, where Kala means not only time, but the dynamics inherent in all things. Like the arrhythmia of the tanka stanza, time’s nonlinearity in the performance begins to manifest itself in unevenness, a kind of curvature creating its own rhythm, forming a magical mandala. 

The stage space of the opera is a potter's wheel with a rod through the middle. The composition resembles a Buddhist stupa, the top of which threads of love, sadness, fear, and loss are wound, intertwining and turning into a heterogeneous but integral canvas of bodies and objects. Voices and choreography are woven into the scene, forming a movable installation like a revived mandala, continuously changing shape. Video projections are reflected on the bodies of the performers, forming new patterns and combinations, reminiscent of a whimsical kaleidoscope. The audience and part of the orchestra are located right around the stage, becoming part of this dynamic mandala. 

The opera consists of two acts, united by a musical system of five-step modes (pentatonic scale), some of which are traditional Japanese modes while some are written especially for the opera. Vividly sampled traditional Japanese instruments are played in an ensemble with flute and bassoon. 

Director: Maria de Valukhoff 

Artist: Elena Miroshnichenko 

Project Cost: 30,000 euros