Continuing our support for artist Jen Shyu, we invite you to experience in-progress excerpts of her epic project Fertile Land, Fertile Body, a multilingual ritual opera comprising ancient and original music, dance, and projection, exploring the loss of mother, loss of motherhood, and human-caused environmental toxicity and genocide’s effects on climate change and our fertility. This iteration will be presented by Vision30 2026 at Abrons Art Center on June 24, 2026.
This chamber ensemble, including Shyu as composer/librettist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist plus women and nonbinary vocalist-instrumentalists who double as choir, uses choreographed movements to express how barrenness in both land and bodies is intertwined.
Jen Shyu – composition, text*, voice, gayageum, Taiwanese moon lute, piano, movement, raw video footage
Nana Dakin – director
Layale Chaker – violin, voice, movement
Alexandria DeWalt – flute, voice, movement
Melanie Dyer – viola, voice, movement
Elizabeth Kate – cello, voice, movement
Lesley Mok – drums, voice, movement
Haruna Lee – writing doula
Soomi Kim – choreographer
Laura Sofía Pérez – projection design
Eric Cheng – photography and iceberg video.
The Vision Festival, an annual, internationally acclaimed festival in New York City, celebrates black, multicultural, improvised creative arts. It showcases experimental music, dance, poetry, and visual arts with a strong emphasis on improvisation.