GODDESS 2.0 (2015)
a multimedia opera
 

for voice and hologram


Based on the 1934 Chinese silent film The Goddess, with a new ending.


Chinese silent film mega star Ruan Lingyu shocked the world with her suicide at age 24 shortly after the premiere of The Goddess, in which her onscreen character––a young woman who turns to prostitution in ’30s Shanghai––chooses the same fate. A highly publicized funeral procession follows, deemed “the most spectacular funeral of the century" by The New York Times, during which three other women took their own lives. Almost a century later, the gossip and speculation is still ongoing. Goddess 2.0 dives into the liminality of acting and our projected histories and futures in a new multimedia score of holographic voicings. Can a new archetype move towards agency in our cinematic memories? What if she can speak?


Written, Composed, and Directed by Michelle Sui