An open-air opera in three acts, the Detroit Afrikan Funkestra, was produced by the Detroit Afrikan Music Institution for the Detroit Design Festival. The Funkestra's first performance took place in the North End against the picturesque and unlikely backdrop of the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm. Amongst kale and hibiscus plants, twelve musicians representing a breadth of genres recounted an incomplete history of music in the city.
The scenography, much like the opera itself, is a playful smashup. Sampling a number of existing and disappeared performance stages from music venues in the neighborhood, the Funkestra set is a nostalgia-free reconfiguration calibrated to look both familiar and renewed. Using simple materials – plywood, house paint, glitter, and hardware – the stage is conceived as a subliminal supergraphic, hinting at a set of deeply-contextual, underexposed narratives grounded in the neighborhood's collective imaginary.
2016
North End, Detroit, Michigan
Funding/Grants:
Knight Foundation, Detroit Design Festival, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban
Planning
Principals:
Anya Sirota, Jean Louis Farges
Design Team:
Taylor Montgomery, Ian Donaldson