Interview with Erika Vega, the Chrysalis Project's Contributor
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-wfYXHTayko
CHRYSALIS is a series of six videos, spanning six countries, that explores the idea that a particular kind of metamorphosis, transformation, and hope is only possible in a place of darkness. Each video is a fusion of the media of classical music, dance, and film, featuring original choreography set to new compositions recorded by the Oxford Alternative Orchestra (OAO). Under the artistic direction of conductor Hannah Schneider, the project comprises award-winning choreographers in Burkina Faso, the U.S., Russia, New Zealand, Korea, and the UK. Through the medium of film, each choreographer explores different interpretations of hope that have been illuminated, and even enhanced, by the darkness of the global pandemic we are all still experiencing. CHRYSALIS: Americas takes an allegorical approach to the theme of ‘chrysalis’, drawing on Aztec rituals of birth and death to explore the idea of emergence from a dark place into something grander and more complete.
Erika Vega is an award-winning composer currently studying a PhD at the University of Oxford. She has received prizes from the Eighth Annual Jurgenson Competition for Young Composers at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the TACTUS 2017 Young Composers Forum in Belgium, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2017 National Composers Intensive and The Henfrey Prize for Composition 2019 at the University of Oxford, among others. She completed an artistic residency at Royaumont (2018-2019), writing music for dance, a collaborative relationship between composer and choreographer.
You can read more about the CHRYSALIS project by visiting their website.
