Newtown Odyssey

Marie Lorenz (artist), Dana Spiotta (writer), and Kurt Rohde (musician) have embarked on a fantastical collaboration - "Newtown Odyssey" is a floating opera that will take place along the Newtown Creek in New York City. The project is funded by a 2021 Creative Capital grant. Marie, Dana and Kurt met at the American Academy in Rome in 2008-09.

The Newtown Creek is one of the most polluted industrial sites in the US, and almost invisible to most New Yorkers. This project will tell the story of the creek through integrated music, visuals, sound, drama, and movement. The opera can be experienced in phases, reshuffling the narrative, giving each audience an entirely different experience of the work. Performers will sing aboard moveable stages, as the audience passes by in boats, revealing a complexity of interrelationships, the deep environmental catastrophes that the landscape has endured, and inviting participants to confront difficult (and possibly hidden) truths.