A scene from Squonk Opera. (Photo courtesy Rozsa Center)A meta-civic celebration, the show combines a heartfelt toast of the Copper Country with a vaudevillian-style roast, poking fun at our own overblown sense of grandeur.
The Washington Post described Squonk’s local performance as "…an unusual 90-minute ode… including, but not limited to, rock-and-roll, projected videos, aerial footage, dancers, and a puppet show. The elements blend together onstage to create a show that is at once playful and polished. A group of six musicians take the stage in tracksuits, pretending to be Olympic athletes at an over-the-top welcome-home ceremony. Then they all sit down and play stunning, sophisticated music."
In October, Squonk members Jackie Dempsey (Artistic Director and composer) and David Wallace (guitarist and designer) came to Houghton to collect the raw material they needed to construct a show specific to this area. They videotaped interviews with local citizens, made movies of the local streetscapes and researched the town’s history -- including its victories, scandals, icons and idiosyncrasies -- everything that makes the people of the Copper Country who they are. Local schoolchildren drew imagination maps of their neighborhoods, which will be incorporated into an animated sequence projected onstage where local dance groups will join them. Dancers from the Copper Country Cloggers and the MTU Social Dance Club met with Squonk during their residency and will perform original dance routines during the Dec. 11 performance.
Jackie Dempsey, a co-founder of Squonk, says,"We enjoy discovering how each city sees itself, as a whole and within its diverse communities. In this celebration of the host town, we talk about the broader issues of shared humanity and the need for self-definition. Our premise is that every city is new and exciting … at a time when all the national media comes out of LA and New York and focuses on only two cities in the country. All the other towns and cities in America have stories to tell, too."
Squonk Opera has designed a show that allows the audience members to tell their own stories -- in their own words. And Houghton is in good company. Over the past 16 years, Squonk has tailored operas for cities such as Pittsburgh, College Park, Albany, Baltimore, St. Louis, Newark and Charleston. Admittedly, Houghton is the smallest town Squonk has worked with -- which presented its own challenges. But, as Dempsey observed, it also makes the Copper Country one of the most interesting and unique places they’ve worked with. The original idea for the town-specific operatic format was inspired by half-time shows, mummer parades, video documentary art, nationalistic opera, centennial celebrations, political campaigns, tribal displays and local mythologies. Squonk explores the gray area between civic pride and xenophobia, but they do it all with showbiz razzamatazz and rock-n-roll humor.
"'Community' is a current vital issue," Dempsey says, "but it’s also a comic creative challenge, allowing us to explore what makes opera life-like and life operatic … or not!"
Join Squonk Opera at the Rozsa Centerat 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 11, for "Houghton, the Hometown Opera." See the operatic debut of friends and family members as we celebrate the culture, customs and craziness of the Copper Country -- in a way you’ve never seen before!
The annual Friends of the Rozsa Christmas Tree Silent Auction to benefit the Class Acts Program will conclude during the intermission of Squonk’s performance.
Sponsored by the James and Margaret Black Endowment.
Ticket prices for the general public are $25 and $20; MTU student prices are $20 and $15 (MTU student ID required). To purchase tickets contact the Rozsa Box Office at 487.3200, The Central Ticket Office (SDC) at 487.2073, Tech Express (MUB) at 487.3308 or go online at tickets.mtu.edu. No refunds, exchanges, or late seating, please.
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