Electric Cathedral
by Kevin March (Music), Kylie Supski (Text) and ReVerse Butcher (Text and 3D digital sculptures and environments)
Featuring The Consort of Melbourne
Katherine Norman Soprano
Kristy Biber Soprano
Alex Ritter Alto
Robin Parkin Tenor
Lachlan McDonald Baritone
Steven Hodgson Bass (director)
Program
Electric Cathedral
Metaself – in the beginning there was no beginning…
Love – love is and is not, to stop time…
Death – we ask death…
Artificial Intelligence – we don't need our birth…
Rebirth – we are the continuous present…
Language [Wordless]
About the work
Electric Cathedral is an immersive, multi-media work for six unaccompanied voices and projected digital environments. In it, the audience is surrounded by a ‘digital cathedral’ comprised of projected luminous human bodies rendered in virtual stained glass.
Within this space, enveloped by rich vocal harmonies, the audience is drawn through uniquely human experiences and questions: How do we begin? How do we live? How do we love? How do we die? What do these things mean? Electric Cathedral is an audio-visual expression of how a new, contemporary, human spirituality might look and sound, and how a person’s desire to remain deeply human might be expressed in a digital age.
Electric Cathedral was created with a grant from The Australia Council for the Arts (now Creative Australia).
About the artists
Kevin March (composer)
Kevin March is an award-winning composer whose works have been performed in North America, Australia, and Europe by Victorian Opera (Australia), Nicole Car & Étienne Dupuis, Opéra de Montréal (Canada), Pacific Opera Victoria (Canada), Edmonton Opera (Canada), One Ounce Opera (USA), PLEXUS (Australia), the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (Australia), Orchestra Victoria (Australia), Ironwood (Australia), Halcyon (Australia), The Arcko Ensemble (Australia), the ASTRA Chamber Music Society (Australia), Brave New Works (USA), the New York City Opera (USA), and by other renowned performers such as Coady Green, Katie Yap, Donna Coleman, Stefan Cassomenos and Sarah Curro.
In 2023 Kevin awarded the prestigious UKARIA Residency for The Unknown Swimmer, which premiered in 2024. His fifth opera Echo & Narcissus, commissioned by Victorian Opera, premiered in March 2021 and won the Green Room Award for New Australian Opera at the 39th Annual Green Room Awards. His previous opera, Les Feluettes (Lilies), commissioned by Opéra du Montréal, premiered in May 2016 to sold-out audiences, standing ovations, and rave reviews. It has been seen by approximately 20,000 opera goers since its premiere. La Noche Oscura was composed for Nicole Car, Étienne Dupuis, and Jayson Gillham on the occasion of their 2019 Australian recital tour and was performed in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Brisbane, and broadcast on ABC Classic FM. His song cycle, Songs of Remembrance and Resistance, was premiered on One Ounce Opera's 2nd Ounce of Fresh Squeezed Art Song in November, 2017 and was nominated for Outstanding Original Composition in the 2018 Austin Critics Table Awards.
Kylie Supski (poet) and ReVerse Butcher (VR/AR/XR artist and poet)
Kylie Supski & ReVerse Butcher are a married creative duo who work across poetry, performance, theater, VR/AR/XR, video, virtual sculptures, immersive experiences, & photography.
Their videopoem To Stop Time won the "Best in Melbourne" prize at the Australian XR Festival 2023. Videopoems There are Some Things Only the Moon has Seen featured in UK’s Burning House Press, National Poetry Month Canada, & QLD Poetry’s Panacea Poets., A Window was a finalist in QLD Poetry’s Video+Poetry Challenge 2020.
Kylie Supski won the 2016 Melbourne Spoken Word Prize.
Through 2021-2023, ReVerse Butcher won the Best in Digital Art prize at the QLD XR Festival. She also won the 2022 SF360 Best Film award at the SF3 Film Festival, Sydney.
The Consort of Melbourne (vocal ensemble)
The Consort of Melbourne is an elite vocal ensemble that champions both historic and contemporary repertoire, comprising a core membership of eight of Melbourne’s finest chamber singers under the artistic direction of Steven Hodgson.
Founded in 2008 by Peter Tregear and Warren Trevelyan-Jones, The Consort has presented a regular concert series at Melbourne Recital Centre for many years, and has also been invited to collaborate with groups such as the Rolling Stones, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australian Youth Orchestra, Melbourne Youth Orchestra, the Song Company, La Compañia and Spiritualized. In 2024, the Consort featured in the MSO Chamber series, performing Katy Abbott's 'Hidden Thoughts'. They also recorded for the feature film 'The Surfer' starring Nicolas Cage.
Donate to The Consort of Melbourne
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Electric Cathedral - texts
METASELF
in the beginning
there was no beginning
in the beginning
was the word
everything happens
in language first
in the beginning
was the word full
was the world full
of god
in all the words
in all the worlds
God alone
God lost
in the beginning
God created man
a word
and left him
and left him
and left him
alone
lost
in all the words
lost
in all the worlds
lost, alone, lost, alone, lost, alone
man breathed all the words
into a woman
man breathed all the worlds
into a woman
and left her
and left her
and left her
alone
lost, alone, lost, alone, lost, alone
woman took all the words
into her mouth
woman took all the worlds
into her mouth
all the words
all the worlds
dissolved under her tongue
like light dispersing
one beam becomes many
overwhelming light becomes
all colors and all directions
one world becomes all worlds
everything happens
in language first
speaking and unspeaking
your metaself into being
woman, man
worlds and words
and the whole spectrum of bodies in-between
words and worlds
woman, man
the body a veil to be peeled away
not innocence, not blindness,
not naivety, but solidity,
the mind is an idea
and consciousness
so concentrated
thoughts gather
letters together
tightly woven DNA
metalanguage
we make ourselves out of metalanguage
the body is an idea
the mind is an idea
strands of code
so concentrated
molecules gather
signals together
a metabody
we make ourselves each a metabody
we cannot unweave
we cannot uncount
we cannot unravel
words and molecules
gather together
barely touching
in the beginning
there was no beginning
willing your metaself
into being
in the beginning
there was no beginning
in the beginning
there was no beginning
in the beginning
there was no man, woman, God
in the beginning
there was no beginning
there was no God, woman, man
there was no thought
there was no word
there was knowledge
there was no thing
there was nothing
in the beginning
there was no beginning
willing your metaself
into being
in the beginning
there was no beginning
LOVE
love is and is not, to stop time
love is quantum in nature
to love is to answer a question
love / quantum
splits me in two - but I will
always, endlessly recognize you
love is / is not a rose, a lily,
an orchid
the stem, the petal, the roots
love is knowing that if I had one breath left
I would put all the flowers in your hands
love / quantum
cracks me in three - our limbs
are lightning in the family tree
love is and is not, lightning,
love is to stop time
love is a fractal blooming against an infinite sky
love is our bodies suspended and moving through time
there is no objectivity in love
Love is no thought
Love is no unknowable moment
love / quantum
fractures me in four - our hearts are worn drumskins in an orbital war
love is, love is not
awareness that we are complete
love is, love is not an act of circular breathing
love is connection
love / quantum
cuts me in five - our fingerprints
echo in the otherworldly archive
love is and is not an entangled tongue
love / quantum
hits me for six - our skin dismantled
in the River Styx
Love is / ONE / system /
Love is not / TWO / observers /
Love is / THREE / questions /
Love is not / FOUR / natures /
Love is /FIVE
Love is / SIX / and sex /
Love is / alive / alive / alive
DEATH
We ask death
are we are we not are we
like a splinter in the brain
the unsolved equation
we ask death
why, why, why
is it tomorrow
is it tomorrow
is it today
we ask death
how much time
can we hold
in our hands
time and God
birth and death
if we stopped
all the clocks
how many lives
could we live
happens only once
the future shrinks
with every day
the red rose
cut from its branch
and tossed on a grave
is not aware of death
the future shrinks
with every day
we follow
the vicious circle
as close
to our birth
as our death
close coordinates on the
map of eternity
We ask death
are we are we not are we
like a splinter in the brain
the unsolved equation
the future shrinks
with every day
and we follow
the unknown
number of breaths
breath
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
(my body)
we don't need our birth
the future is never here
follow the unknown sunrise
we could suspend a map of eternity
the hour glass bleeding DNA alphabet
collective soul carefully chosen
God, a time prison cut in stone
MY BODY IS A TEMPLE
MY BODY IS AN
ELECTRIC CATHEDRAL
remember a polyphonic God
love cuts a cycle strip of aeons
we are red, red infinity
we create the red rose bodies of god
feelings echos connections to
eternity, red red infinity
MY BODY IS A TEMPLE
MY BODY IS AN
ELECTRIC CATHEDRAL
we are a spectrum of bodies, strands of code
a sunflower of light dispersing light
our limbs an orchid
a petal dismantles our skin
our skin is lightning in your hands
we are complete love
with a kiss we solidify our reflections
our DNA intricate poetry
we are breathing outside of language
MY BODY IS A TEMPLE
MY BODY IS AN
ELECTRIC CATHEDRAL
REBIRTH
we are the
continuous present.
nature gives us
blood. a mother’s comfort.
proof of life is blood,
a cycle, a halo
we all end
where we begin.
we are the
continuous present.
but what if we
are not the only one.
we are hurling through
microcosmic aeons
folding in endless loops.
where we all start, is
where we end.
immortality, infinity
and eternity. our memories
are not much more than shadows
our memories are no proof that we exist.
what if life has
no beginning.
we are the
continuous present.
our lives
explode and replicate
from nowhere to nowhere
God turns the hourglass.
there is no unused time.
we live again and again.
but what if we
are not the only one.
LANGUAGE
[Wordless]