In converation with Wu Tsang and artist and writer Sophie Al-Maria who together worked on the innovative Carmen opera that was presented by the Holland Festival last year.
For her opera version of Carmen Wu Tsang cooperated with writer and artist Sophia Al-Maria. Together they worked on a hybrid opera-theatre piece that digs through the many layers of Carmen’s legacy: Carmen is a rebellious bird, a wandered, a hustler, a factory worker, a polylingual, shape-shifting lover, stateless and ungovernable. How do you create a new version of a story that is so canonical? Writer Enrique Fuenteblanca speaks about it with Wu Tsang and Sophia Al-Maria.
As part of this programme we screen the film Latcho Drom in our film hall. You can buy a combi ticket to visit both the talk and the film.
Carmen and Carmen
From 20 December to 12 January, award-winning filmmaker and multimedia artist Wu Tsang presents Carmen and Carmen: a film installation, along with a program of films, talks and performances, that together explore the myth of Carmen in conversation with her collaborators.
Speakers
<strong>About Wu Tsang and Sophia Al-Maria</strong>
Sophia Al-Maria is an artist, writer, and filmmaker. She grew up between the United States and Qatar before moving to Egypt to study comparative literature at the American University in Cairo. She next completed a graduate degree in aural and visual cultures at Goldsmiths, London. An interdisciplinary artist, her work has been shown in various international exhibitions, most recently including: Not My Bag, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, USA (2023); Beast Type Song, GARAGE, Moscow (2021); taraxos, Serpentine x Modern Forms Sculpture Commission, London (2021); and Bitch Omega, Julia Stoschek, Dusseldorf, Germany (2020. Sophia’s moving memoir The Girl Who Fell To Earth was published by Harper Perennial in 2012. Her writing has also appeared in publications including Harper’s Magazine and Bidoun.
Wu Tsang is an award-winning filmmaker and performance artist. Her works explore hidden histories, marginalized narratives, and the act of performing itself. Within her deeply collaborative practice, she frequently partners with the performance group she co-founded in 2016 with artist Tosh Basco, known as Moved by the Motion. Wu Tsang’s work has been presented at museums, biennials, and film festivals internationally. In the Netherlands Hartwig Art Foundation and Holland Festival presented Wu Tsang’s latest performance works– MOBY DICK; or, The Whale (2022) and Carmen (2024)– both co-commissioned by Hartwig Art Foundation.
A project by filmmaker and performance artist Wu Tsang
In Carmen and Carmen award winning filmmaker and performance artist Wu Tsang explores the myth of one of the most portrayed characters in Western culture. The story of Carmen, the title character from the iconic opera by Georges Bizet, has been told and retold over the past 150 years. Habanera, the aria in which she
