Opera · 2024 / 2027
if you unfolded us
An opera created by Sable Elyse Smith (words, videos, art direction, stage direction) with electroacoustic chamber score composed and produced by David Dominique
Opera · 2024 / 2027
An opera created by Sable Elyse Smith (words, videos, art direction, stage direction) with electroacoustic chamber score composed and produced by David Dominique
§ 1 · The work
if you unfolded us is an opera by interdisciplinary artist and writer Sable Elyse Smith, with music composed and produced by David Dominique. The work intertwines an unfolding love story between two Black women with the protagonist’s journey of self-discovery — elevating the stuff of everyday life, in Smith’s words, into “a new kind of epic tale within the formal and aesthetic space of opera.”
Digital Image © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York · Photo by Jonathan Dorado
Smith’s approach begins with language, exploring the voice as artistic material across a multimedia operatic form structured in two parts. Dominique’s score fuses sampling, R&B, jazz, musique concrète, and contemporary chamber music. Set against the backdrop of a developing storm, the work explores the political, collective, and dramatic potential of the voice — and the ways language dissolves through sonic expression.
Digital Image © 2024 The Museum of Modern Art, New York · Photo by Jonathan Dorado
if you unfolded us premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as part of the exhibition Studio Sound: Sable Elyse Smith. In spring 2027, The Industry presents a reimagined production in a nightclub setting in Los Angeles — Smith’s hometown — for which Dominique is revising the score.
Premieres
Museum of Modern Art, New York · 2024
Studio Sound: Sable Elyse Smith
The Industry, Los Angeles · Spring 2027
Reimagined production · Nightclub setting
Collaborators
Adjacent works