64 Libretti

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas
Sound/Light Installation now showing through November 21, 2008

Jack Straw New Media Gallery
4261 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle WA 98105 USA
Phone 1 (206) 634-0919
Email jsp @ jackstraw.org

Creative Team

Sound Byron Au Yong
Light Randy Moss
Video Jean-Stephane

Audio Engineers Tom Stiles, CJ Lazenby

Librettists Eugenie Chan, Bret Fetzer, Aaron Jafferis, Archana Kumar, Carola Luther, Caroline Murphy, Vivian Umino, Edisa Weeks

Singers Josie Davis, Emily Greenleaf, Jeremiah Oliver, David Stutz

Percussionists Stuart McLeod, Dean Moore, Benjamin Morrow, James Whetzel

Project Manager Pike Pin
Costume Designer Emily Carlsen
Videographer Eric Rockey
Research Erica Howard
Logo Wing Fong

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas is thankful for support from Creative Capital's Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation; 4Culture's King County Site-Specific Performance Network; Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts; and Jack Straw Productions

26 Trecherous Water

大畜 Dà Chù |¦¦|||

Treacherous water,
I put you in a pool and swim in you.

Treacherous water,
I won’t drink you.
Drinking means peeing.
Peeing on a road trip with
us four in back
to Murchinson Falls
or Sandy Beach.
Dad in the driver’s seat.
Brothers on each side.
I am tucked in the back,
sandwiched in the middle,
luggage falls upon me.

Treacherous water,
don’t make me pee.
I squeeze my legs together
and pray for brother
on either side to ask
for a pit stop.

Oh weak bladder stop.
Miles and miles and no
place to stop.
All I want is a pit stop but no…

I squat between two open car doors.
Pee on my shoes.
Dad says go in the bush,
but the snakes and the lion.

There a latrine.
Honey bucket sweet
with a gaping, reeking black hole,
brother says he’ll throw me in if I tell
his secret:
I know that he knows where Dad hides
the Playboys: Centerfolds who never pee.

Treacherous water,
I won’t drink you.
I put you in a pool and swim in you.


Libretto by Edisa Weeks