Embracing a Genre
When I finally had the nerve to play a few of my tunes for the brilliant actress Cynthia Martells, she asked me, “Where’s the action?” I had told her that I was piecing together a docu-musical, yet there was very little happening movement for an audience to enjoy.
The “autobiographical sci-fi documusical” envisioned decades ago* had originally focused on the protagonist’s life, but in time the muses have presented a core narrative of human freedom through time. The verses tell of our shared history and legends of freedom with a shared musical theme. The verses describe and exemplify internal freedom, cimarron freedom, jubileed freedom and cultural freedom through deliberation.
Most people find the verses relaxing and somewhat inspiring, yet entertaining only intellectually. The content is primarily conceptual, insightful, culturally critical, even political. It seems obvious to dispense with the constraints of live performance in favor of an embellished and illustrated online oratorio.
My dear friend and exquisite musician, Tristan Clarridge, who has witnessed the unfolding of this work, told me years ago to create a book for people to read along with the recitations. Since then I’ve been collecting images to accompany the text, to form an illustrated libretto. The visual aspect of the process will further imbue the concepts presented and may help squeeze the production into a single genre, “oratorio”.
Is this project an oratorio?
Oratorios are musical productions of a lofty theme with an overture, arias, choruses and ensembles, recitatives and a finale.
Compared with the oratorio’s musical base the doctor’s story is a patchwork of varied and distinct audio and video clips, illustrations and semantic screens. There are peeks into character and struggles which all seem necessary to the development of deliberation software that the project promotes. Although the basis of a through-plot, the doctor’s experiences are free of the oratorio’s limitations and don’t conform to the oratorio’s structure.
The doctor’s story embraces, rather than conforming to a majority “feel”, is expressed as experienced by the protagonist. An unlikely partner to the relatively sober recitation the varied tunes and images embellish and update our shared human understanding of the process of liberation.
How the genre fits the project
The oratorio provides a sturdy soap-box for the protagonist to stand upon to promote her vision.
The oratorio is also suited for the project’s embedded long-form epic of human freedom which is told from four perspectives throughout the first two acts.
The protagonist’s experiences are related to the four perspectives of freedom as wisps of song and images, lacking the dramatic action of an entertaining musical, play, movie or opera.
The subject and themes of the Imbue project echo the power and gravitas of the classical oratorio which aspires to deliver to its listeners a state of inspiration, even grace.
Oratorio + Online Libretto
Coupling the oratorio format with an online libretto allows space to present the protagonist’s complex challenge. The oratorio’s 4 parts start with the ideal, then spins a tale each from prehistory and ancient history, and concludes with an open invitation for open collaboration. These vignettes are interwoven with the real life story of a doctor seeking health freedom for the world.
The oratorio describes the method of mercy: understanding, compassion and accountable action; and the doctor’s story shows how 8 shapes of universal shared information help solve complex challenges.
The expansive multimedia online oratorio may grow to allow site visitors options uploaded by users and , free from the temporal and spacial fetters of a live performance or documentary, allows time for subtle hues to color one’s imagination and sensibilities.
Oratorio + Online Libretto + Collaboration
The oratorio and its website will change as material is uploaded and edited into an evolving illustrated libretto that encourages deliberation about the project itself. Contributions by site visitors will inform the lyrical content of the embedded epic and also provide content for the oratorio’s collaborative denoument. The third and final act of Imbue lifts off the page with undefined coordinates.
An online oratorio may dovetail with common and cutting edge technologies required by the Imbue project which explores the boundless canvass of human collective creativity.
Combining the oratorio-online libretto with collaborative technology extends the project oratorio’s lofty themes of creative inclusivity to reach beyond personal identity to the realms of shared humanity and expression.
The formation of an oratorio, not tethered to any stage, is flexible and is likely to integrate, possibly shift to, new platforms as new features are imagined.
Oratorio + Online Libretto + Collaboration + Bling
The oratorio’s explanation of ushin shapes in verse and illustrated examples enter the practical world with physical “gimmicks” such as ushin charms that people can download, assemble, laser print… to help define, process and fund their own deliberations.
Examples of other oratorios
- www.NotTheMessiahMovie.com
- The Light of Asia (1886)
- Sanctuary Road
* For past descriptions of Imbue see the placeholder on imdb, with this description of what the director then envisioned:
“On another planet similar to Earth, an optimistic doctor struggles to relay timely information of global significance. She falls prey to slander, treachery, greed, negligence, and ignorance. Others call her concept “too big an idea”, until finally they scramble aboard in the wake of pandemic tragedy.” —Anonymous (2017)
