Music, animation performance
by Anna Lindemann
with Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Soprano
Sara Holdren, Director
THEORY of FLIGHT is a performance at the convergence of art and science. With story, animations, and music by Anna Lindemann, the lecture-performance melds biology and multidisciplinary art in a fantasia of avian obsession. THEORY of FLIGHT is presented at Yale's Off-Broadway Theater as part of the debut year of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities, a new Yale University initiative that aims to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue, creative collaboration, and research among scientists and humanists.
THEORY of FLIGHT features Lucy Fitz Gibbon, noted for her “clear voice” (Mittelbayerische Zeitung) and “endearing stage presence” (The New York Times), as the Bird Spirit, and Anna Lindemann as scientist Alida Kear, with masterful direction by Sara Holdren, a 2015 Directing Candidate at the Yale School of Drama and director of such performances as her own adaptations of Leonid Andreyev’s He Who Gets Slapped and Shakespeare’s Henry IV. In THEORY of FLIGHT, a scientist's biology lecture on flight goes awry when she reveals her own extreme experiments. Dreams of flight, avian arias, a magical chalkboard, transgenic experiments, animated cellular processes, orchestral bird songs, and molecular music intersect in this emotional and scientific pursuit of human flight.
“THEORY of FLIGHT is a unique tour-de-force of science-inspired art,” raves author, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg. “Anna Lindemann is a brilliant animator, composer, and performer who really has the audience unsure whether she is biologist or artist as she tells us all what is necessary to truly learn to fly. This work marks the birth of a whole new genre.”
Tickets for the performance are free, but seating is limited and ticket reservations are recommended. The performance run time is 50 minutes. A talkback with the artisitc team will follow each performance.
This production is made possible by the Franke Program in the Science and Humanities.
