Salvation

Salvation, a cyberformance by Marelena Corcoran
with Antoinette Lafarge, Tara Rebele and Julian Hermann

Planes in the Hudson. Ferries in the sky. Join us on UpStage on 20th of May, 9 pm Venice time, local time here. There will be a link to the live stage here 30 minutes before the performance.

"Salvation," a networked performance with nodes in New Zealand, California, Virginia, Banglaore and Venicea, will be performed live at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia and to audiences worldwide via the UpStage venue. “Salvation” is a cyberformance, for which players in different countries log on to the Upstage! server in New Zealand. Upstage! requires no special software for audiences; one simply points one’s browser to the url of the “stage” to attend this performance. Audience members see the performance develop on their desktops, and hear the voices and sound effects through the speakers of their computers. For a public venue, the performance is projected onto a large-scale projection screen or wall; the sound is fed through loudspeakers.

“Salvation” brings together stories of rescue and redemption at the crossroads of land and water, New York and Venice, heaven and earth, literature and technology. Original lyrics in English feature the story of a woman who almost drowned in New York harbor, and the story of the wedding of the Venetian doge with the sea. In the background, we hear a man intone in Italian the instructions for what to do if someone falls overboard from a vaporetto: cast a life-saving ring into the sea. The ferry boats that rescued the passengers of the plane that landed in the Hudson River are hailed by the tolling bells of the Venetian Church of the Redeemer.

“Salvation” is created by Marlena Corcoran, and performed by Marlena, Tara Rebele and Julian Hermann, with performance drawing by Antoinette LaFarge, and media production by Tara Rebele. It is presented by Concordanze / Altre lingue, altre poetiche nel contemporaneo, as part of the Venice International Literary Conference, Incroci di civiltà. A networked performance, “Salvation” will be projected live in different locations around the world. A video recording will be made of the performance and shown at the Querini Stampalia throughout the conference Incroce da Civilta.