Munkination

Presentation

Munkination is an immersive opera experience designed for small audience groups to share a futuristic adventure story about climate change. The project mixes styles and genres, combining live performance with a distinctive graphic world in virtual reality (VR) and scored with a hybrid of hip hop and opera resulting in a radically new sound. The project is a crossover collaboration between visual artist and hip-hop producer HAM the Illustrator and opera director Isabelle Kettle. Audiences will enter a pop-up installation, flexibly designed to allow for different locations on tour.

The nomadic people of Munkination are inspired by the indigenous hunter-gatherer tribes of South West Africa, the Khoisan, who have been recognised as one of the earliest formed distinct human genetic groups on Earth. They live in harmony with the cyclical nature of their environments, dealing with scarcity, abundance, draught and floods as they occurred. These traits are now seen by some climate scientists as the key for humanity to survive climate change, adaptability, a new approach to planetary stewardship and new economic models that work with the changeability of natural resources.

Climate change and humankind’s impact on our planet is the predominant challenge facing society today. Munkination will take advantage of new innovations in immersive technology to enable a dialogue amongst artists and audiences about how our society can tackle this pressing issue to take place on a global stage, in a powerful and stimulating way.

Munkination is produced by Audience Labs at the Royal Opera House, which brings together pioneering artists and next generation immersive technologies to create new contemporary opera and ballet experiences for audiences across the world. Munkination is the inaugural winner of the Immersive Opera Lab Award - a collaboration between GUAP and Audience Labs at the Royal Opera House.

Artistic Team