Last night: Alladeen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Click on that link to get a taste of the multi-media performance. Probably the best thing I've seen at BAM this fall, as part of my Next Wave subscription (which, to be fair, was to five performances and not the whole series).
Really using multimedia instead of just sync'ing up live performance up with a video projection, Alladeen digs into global dislocation, primarily by dramatizing the workings of Indian call centers--huge enterprises where young, intelligent, educated, English-speaking Indians are taught American or British accents and idioms, briefed in cultural referants, and given working-hour alter-egos as Rachels, Matts, Joeys and Phoebes.
They enter and exit the western world via fiber optic phone lines, selling and supporting and offering advice, turning their own lives upside down (deep night in Bangalore is day in North America) to keep a good job and realize some of their own dreams. The companies that employ them realize huge savings in salary costs, but also know that most Americans want to think they're talking to a fellow American when they book their flights non-stop London-NewYorkCity.
Alladeen was very good, blending sound, video animation, live performance, projections--sometimes via small computer cameras on the "workstations" as the actors played call center employees on the job. The audience surveilling the workers just as management would, while seeing small personal anguishes and triumphs play out simultanously on the stage.
Images of Aladdin, from Hollywood and Bollywood, joined Asia and EuroAmerica, much like the fiber optic phone lines and the international flights into and out of expat communities in London or New York City or cell phones, or Asian dub and electronica. Aladdin flying on his magic carpet, magically riding out of obscurity and into importance. The genie granting all his wishes.
I wish I had a job. I wish I lived in California/New York/London. I wish I would make another sale. I wish I knew which city I was in. I wish I wasn't worried all the time. I wish I could fly.
Posted by Emily at December 6, 2003 09:47 AM