February 4, 2005: Volume 63, Number 5

Pulitzer poet, composer team up for 'Shangri-La'

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa and composer Susie Ibarra bring the avant-garde chamber opera "Shangri-La" to Union College's Yulman Theater on Thursday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m.

This one-night-only workshop performance is free and open to the public. 

"Shangri-La" explores the pervasive tourism sex industry in Southeast Asia and the resulting widespread poverty and HIV infection in the region. 

The story is told from many different points of view: the Thai women working as prostitutes and their families, western tourists and solicitors, and a "metaphysical detective."

One ambition of the opera is to create awareness on issues like human rights, HIV and AIDS.

"We are thrilled to bring to campus a cutting-edge artistic endeavor that deals with global issues and transcontinental themes," said organizer Ed Pavlic, associate professor of English at Union

Komunyakaa was inspired after reading articles about men from the West traveling to Bangkok, immersing themselves in lifestyles filled with fantasy, sometimes unable or willing to return to their everyday lives. 

A collaborative effort, Komunyakaa wrote the libretto and Ibarra wrote the original score, which incorporates jazz, blues and Thai folk music. It will performed by nine opera soloists and seven musicians from New York City. This is a contemporary piece with vocalists singing with operatic diction into cell phones. Thursday's show will mark the third performance of this opera.

Komunyakaa is a professor at Princeton University. He is perhaps best known for his work, Neon Vernacular (1993),which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The work also garnered the Kingsley Tufts Award for poetry, the William Faulkner Prize and was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times book award. His book, Talk Dirty to the Gods, became a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has also written librettos for the operas Testimony and Slip Knot.

Modern percussionist and composer Ibarra is based in New York City. Her music is considered avant-garde and experimental, drawing on a variety of influences such as jazz, improvisation, classical and Southeast Asian gong music. She performs with her trio, quartet and Electric Kulintang Ensemble. Her work has brought her to the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center and Alice Tully Hall.

The show is sponsored by Union's East Asian Studies program, Africana Studies, UNITAS and Women's and Gender Studies.

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