Nathan Felix Immerses Audiences Through Headphone Plays (Q&A)
We interview the musician and composer about his work and the upcoming ‘Fury in Sound’
Composer Nathan Felix has been breaking boundaries by staging his headphone operas and site-specific performances in some very unexpected places, including art galleries, museums, a moving bus, and even the airport. His latest immersive work, Fury in Sound (co-created by Nathan and Scott Browning), will premiere at the Orlando Fringe Festival and take place at night in a public park; participants will hear all of the live music and dialogue through headphones as they interact with performers during an interactive seance experience. And they may even encounter some unexpected guests in this spooky immersive show.
We spoke to Nathan over email to learn more.
No Proscenium (NP): Can you tell us about yourself and your background in making immersive work?
Nathan Felix (NF): It started in 2015, when I did a concert for six pianos in my house. I put pianos anywhere there was space—the kitchen, living room, fire place, etc.—and had the audience sit amongst them all. I witnessed the power of being immersed in music, so from then on it’s what I focused on in an attempt to explore sound and space.
I then started a moving choir that performed works while moving and often they were mixed in with the audience. From there I wanted to further blur the lines of audience and performer, which led me to compose and produce my headphone opera, The War Bride.
NP: Can you tell us a little bit more about your mobile street choir and your headphone opera?
NF: Sure! The moving “street” choir is called From Those Who Follow the Echoes and I have them perform “pop-up” style (but not kitschy flash mob style) in public spaces, singing works I’ve composed. I’ll have them perform in a museum and move from gallery to gallery; once I had them perform an opera on a bus where different singers, actors, and performers got on and off at different stops.
The headphone opera titled the War Bride premiered in San Antonio in November 2018. The story was based on the memoir of my late grandmother, Jean Contreras, and her journey from the UK to the United States during WWII. There was a 20-piece chamber ensemble in a room that had a glass wall overlooking the river. On the outside, along the river, I had projected set designs, with dancers and singers immersed within the audience; the audience were on headphones where they could hear the ensemble—behind the glass—mixed in with the singers outside. But there were also hundreds of people that stumbled upon the performance that watched it without headphones.
NP: What is your new project, Fury in Sound, all about and what inspired you to make it?
NF: Fury in Sound: Seance is an extension of my headphone opera. It’s very similar but it’s a musical (but very operatic in nature). It’s completely outdoors and the audience again is on headphones and they are partaking in the narrative and move with the lead actors from set to set. Whereas for The War Bride, I wrote the libretto and the music, for Seance, I only wrote the music.
Seance was conceived together with director, Scott Browning back in February. We found out we had a common interest in horror and mystery so we settled on the theme of a seance and Scott went to work writing the script. Bringing something dark to a production is pretty uncommon for me, so it’s been exciting in composing this style of new music.
NP: How is the site (Loch Haven Park) integrated into the piece?
NF: We chose areas in the main park of the Orlando Fringe Festival: grounds that were somewhat isolated and looked like a places where a group would congregate to perform a ritual in secrecy.
NP: Why use headphones to deliver live music and dialogue?
NF: I like using headphones because it gives intimacy to what you are experiencing. And we have control of the sounds we want to feed into the mix. For instance, the choir will be whispering in some parts, and we’ll make it feel as if those whispers are an inch away from your ear. Headphones also block out all of the exterior noise that will be coming from the festival grounds so while one may see chaos around them, they’ll feel part of an intimate ritual.
NP: How is the audience participating in the work and how are you designing around agency and consent?
NF: I never like to give directions to an audience. I want them to figure it out for themselves. While we provide a narrative and the actors are engaging enough to follow, the audience is welcome to explore how they prefer in that moment. If they’d like to participate up close and sit in the ritual next to the actors, they’ll most likely find themselves being directed by the actors. But if they choose to watch it from a distance, that is completely fine and expected. It runs nine times so they can always experience it multiple ways.
NP: What do you hope people take away from the experience?
NF: I’d like them to have their senses challenged and a bonus would be to feel inspired to seek out other up and coming immersive opera, theatre, and classical music.
Fury in Sound runs May 16–26 at the Orlando Fringe Festival. Tickets are $10.
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