The Mushroom that Swallowed the Moon Whole (2024)

Ritika is currently creating this opera with the artistic team of ‘The Mushroom that Swallowed the Moon Whole’. This work will be sung in Bangla and English in a South Asian folk opera format of stylized speech and narration. The piece converges multiple artistic disciplines and practice-led writings on the ecological crisis and the human condition. It uses narrative memory, community-based regional work, oral histories, characters from our natural and cultural worlds, and a live orchestra inhabiting a forest in Central India in order to conduct a creative inquiry into our collective ego. Through it, Ritika hopes to expand access to artistic experiences that center South Asian musical theater and modes of oral storytelling.

This 3-day event is aimed at bringing story listeners from our communities to access performance-based forms of critical inquiry. Audiences will experience how narration can be used to communicate complex ideas about climate, identity, and migration.

September 20-21, 2024, Luminary Arts Center, MN Opera.

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Creative Team:
Story and Music: Ritika Ganguly
Libretto, Music, Graphic Design: Shinjan Sengupta
Scenic and Costume Design: Joshua Martin
Artistic Direction: Masanari Kawahara
Musicians: May Klug, Praful Kelkar, Cameron Fassett, Shinjan Sengupta, Clay Man Soo, Abhinav Sharma, Ritika Ganguly
Narrator: Vusumuzi Zulu
U of M collaborator: Dr. Nida Sajid (Dept. of AMES)

Supported by:  

• The Imagine Fund Grant, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota 

• 2024 IDEAS Award, University of Minnesota

• Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota

• Luminary Arts Center, MN Opera