Music by Juha T. Koskinen
Text by Aleksi Barrière
*WATERFIRE is a free interpretation in the form of an opera of the writings of Myoe Shonin (1173-1232), a Japanese monk who took concrete action in favor of the rejects and outcasts of his time, including women –but he is most famous for keeping a Dream Diary (Yumenoki) for over forty years.
What do we learn from our dreams? In them we meet memories, fears, fantasies. We visit real and imaginary places. Some say we witness glimpses from the future. At any rate, it is a space of exploration, of learning and of healing.
The audience is invited to experience one dream cycle together, 100 minutes of sound, vision and multiple languages of which we are the dreamers. Like in a dream, we will be visited by familiar things in strange forms.
Fragment / Prologue
I knock on the door and nobody will let me in.
We are the ghosts, the pariahs. This is our band. The banned band.
Oh, excuse me. (Quick introductions.) The band, the audience, the audience, the band.
We should get along. We are on the same side.
And together we will try to have a look at what’s on the other side.
Let’s be honest. In life, you like to look away. You pay money to look away.
Isn’t it strange how some things you only face with closed eyes?
Every night. Rapid-eye-movement indeed.
At some point we will have to talk about you, you know?
Hush, it’s okay. Your mothers loved you all. You can deal with this.
And you will have to deal with the stench. It’s smelling awful.
No matter how much cologne you put on to hide it.
You pay to keep this place clean but the garbage just floats back in.
It’s like a nightmare.
Yes, yes, I know,
‘Stop talking, Get to the point, Let’s get to the thing itself’.
That is, my dear friends, where you are wrong.
You will peel the onion layer after layer looking for the center
And when you will realize the center is empty
You will cry
Not for physical, but for metaphysical reasons.
This is not about the monk who went wandering into the mountains.
I am that monk, I would know.
I am a footnote. A surtitle.
Maybe, for a change, follow me.
>marginalia* 
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