Future Stages

The Emerging Landscape of the Performing Arts

By Edward Bilous

Future Stages—a new performance series and graduate-level class—explores the emerging landscape of the performing arts. The performances feature immersive dance and theater projects, an ambisonic music installation, and a virtual reality experience. Future Stages has five components—Atrium, InterArts, Beyond the Machine, Future Stages VR, and the Art of the Score. The first three take place March 21–26 in the Willson Theater.

The Future Stages performances grew out of the Future Stages class, a fall elective for graduate students. In it, the students explored new trends in the performing arts and digital technology in art-making. It also included workshops with artists working in emerging art forms and hands-on experiences with new media and technologies.

In keeping with the spirit of intellectual and creative exploration, the premiere season of Future Stages performances is the result of a semester-long inquiry into the evolving nature of live performance and class discussions of works by philosophers ranging from Plato (Allegory of the Cave) to Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard. The performances include collaborations by music, dance, and drama students and alumni.

The Atrium
Future Stages opens with Atrium, a 360-degree ambisonic music installation with interactive projection design that features new works by composition students Liam Dietrich, Jake Safirstein, Zi Tao, and Nichagarn Chiracharasporn along with master’s oboist Eduardo Sepulveda.

InterArts
This year’s InterArts program, titled Allegory, is a collection of four theatrical experiences inspired by thematic ideas derived from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. All are immersive experiences in which the audience will be invited to move about the space and interact with the artists and media. The program will include Regression, created by violin master’s student Lauren Conroy and Caroline Fermin (BFA ’07, dance); Panopticon, created by Dion Mucciacito (Group 37) with choreography and dance video by Maddie Hanson (BFA ’19, dance) and choreography and live dance by Matilda Mackey (BFA ’20) and Savannah Dobbs; Critical Dependency, created by Troy Ogilvie (BFA ’07, dance); and Verse, created by Phoebe Dunn (Group 42) and writer and director Kai Kim. All four feature original music composed by students working in Juilliard’s Center for Innovation in the Arts (CIA) studios. Allegory is presented through InterArts, a program we started in 1993 to support interdisciplinary collaboration. Since then, InterArts has expanded to include collaborations with artists working in diverse mediums such as video and animation, interactive technology, virtual environments, and AI-based tools.

Beyond the Machine 22.0—Music for a Sacred Space
This musical reflection on the themes examined in class is an electro- acoustic exploration of new ways that musicians compose and perform in multidimensional sound environments. The works were developed with the unique resources available at the CIA and the Willson Theater, including interactive performance technology and an ambisonic sound system. The program includes premieres of works by Lawrence Wilde (MM ’04, composition), master’s student J.P. Redmond (BM ’21, composition), master’s violinist Lauren Conroy, master’s collaborative pianist Krit Kosoltrakul, master’s composer Shelbie Rassler, and Extension faculty member Rick Baitz. Begun in 2001, Beyond the Machine is a platform for composers and performers to present electro-acoustic music and multimedia art.

Future Stages VR
In the weeks following the launch of Future Stages, the center will present a virtual reality (VR) experience with excerpts from the performing arts series. Future Stages VR will include music and designs developed for the stage programs and adapted for virtual performance venues. It was created by students and alumni working with faculty mentors.

Art of the Score
The last program on Future Stages— which, like Future Stages VR takes place sometime later in the spring—is Art of the Score, a screening of independent films by young filmmakers from around the world with original musical scores by Juilliard composers. It was developed in partnership with international partners including the London and Sydney film schools, Columbia University, UCLA, American Film Institute, and the Bali Film Institute in Indonesia.

Faculty member Edward Bilous (MM ’80, DMA ’84, composition) is the director of the Center for Innovation in the Arts