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

02 I Am Felled

坤 Kūn ¦¦¦¦¦¦

A field
is called a field
because it is a forest felled.
Poor forest.

A man
is called a man
when he gets better at doing things
than being.
Poor being.

My mind is treed-in, busy,
a forest tangled up in vines and doing,
things and looming deadlines.
But like the lichen tongues the tree,
you lick and stick and lichen you to me
until my doing self is out of hearing.

A man
becomes a field
when he finds someone to fell him,
name him,
tell him there’s no shame in clearing.

I hear you say my name,
and I am felled.
I am become a field
for you to run in.


Libretto by Aaron Jafferis