Fleur Barron mezzo-soprano; Suleiman Suleiman dancer; Jong Sun Woo piano; Hibiki Ichikawa shamisen

This project is a meditation on sound and silence, solitude and communion, love and loss, explored through the intertwined narratives of Yasuna, one of the great kabuki plays dating back to 1818, and Schubert’s iconic Winterreise, conceived a decade later in 1827. Grief splinters the psyches of both Schubert’s Wanderer and Yasuna, compelling a journey into the darkness and depths of Self. This is where our performance begins: two individual paths that converge and inspire. Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese theatre that sprang from the dry beds of the Kamo river in Kyoto in 1603. Yasuna was originally written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, a master of lyrical beauty regarded as ‘Japan’s Shakespeare’, and it features michiyuki (dream-like dance journey scenes) that resonate deeply with the romantic sensibility of Schubert’s Winterreise. With movement directors Misa Koide, Aigorō Hanayagi, and Sophie Daneman.