What does it sound like when fish fall in love?
“The Hundred Windows,” a new program presented by Mount Hope World Singers on June 5 and June 7, cannot answer this question. But the show presents it, along with explorations of the northern lights, Ecuadorian folk melodies and extrasensory perception. The rest is up to the audience.
The program is nominally a 12-song choral performance, but its essence is hard to quantify, spanning projected animations, sound design and even minor choreography. Perhaps because of its scope, Annika Bentley, the group’s artistic director, looks back on the show’s two-year gestation period with fondness.
“I’m describing it as an immersive, multidisciplinary exploration of the senses,” she said.
Bentley worked for six months to pen one of the numbers called “Signal to Noise” that reflects the natural movements — and romances — of knifefish. The aquatic creatures use electric currents as part of their sensory experience, including the search for mates.
“They do incredible things, like they will signal jam each other. They will mess each other up. They eavesdrop on one another,” Bentley said, whose 2018 album “Silver Recovery” fittingly boasts a striking design of cosmic flying fish on its cover.
But that’s only part of the presentation.
Other senses like touch, sight and sound are represented across the dozen songs, as are ESP and temperature sensitivities. The latter comes to the fore in “Kungala,” an uplifting chant arranged by Australia’s Stephen Leek.
And then there are the not-so-tangible, less human experiences of the world. They pop up with dictionary terms like “nociception” (detection of painful stimuli) and “equilibrioception” (sense of balance) in compositions like an Ute tribal sun dance and a Celtic a cappella tune, respectively.
The audience will witness the 25 singers in the Mount Hope group reciting these tunes. If folks in the crowd wish to dive into the more conceptual contexts of the show, they’re able to, thanks to the program notes Bentley put together.
Or, they can just vibe.
“There’s no right way to experience it,” Bentley said. “If you want to get into these nerdy weeds with us, we’re delighted to have you. But it’s really not necessary. You could absolutely just let it wash over you.”
To help the experience, the singers will be backdropped by colorful animations by projection designer Christine Banna, who also worked on the group’s 2023 collaboration with Biodance, “Stories From the Living Tree.”
Banna said her work, with assistant animators Bathshèba Duronvil and Katelyn Park, began in the realm of the abstract, listening to the concert and considering key questions like “What colors do we think of?” and “What parts of it moved us?”
From there, they firmed up the more concrete artistic details.
“We’ve made everything physical. It’s all watercolor, analog animation. We made it with our hands,” Banna said. “We then processed it digitally and we’re doing digital manipulation after the fact.”
Some are more physical than others. For “Northern Lights,” a spectral number from Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, Banna thought of colorful stained glass. The roomy “æther,” a dreamlike reverie from Canadian composer Jordan Nobles, evoked “a fog lifting away.”
The projections will be “live-mixed” in the way a VJ presents images at a nightclub, meaning it will be slightly different during each of the two performances. By contrast, projections for operas and theatrical plays tend to rely on precise cues. Banna’s work for “The Hundred Windows” is more elastic.
“Even though our visuals are abstract, they are moving and alive and changing,” she said. “They almost take another spot on the stage alongside the live human performers.”
Other key humans include Mount Hope World Singers conductor Brian White and Logan Barrett — who will produce the live sound design for the program, including newly penned atmospheric sonic textures to play during the interludes.
The result is a bold concert with a staggering scope, boasting choral works from places of origin including Malaysia, Haiti, South Africa, Ireland, China and more. It’s a lot to ask of a community chorus in which, Bentley said, not every member is an experienced or professional singer. But it falls in line with the group’s stated purpose.
“Our broader mission is to foster intercultural understanding and to build community, and the way that I interpret that is through a lens of universal experience,” she said. “It’s much less about showing what a different culture is like than it is just having us feel and experience our essential sameness and togetherness.”
In other words, “The Hundred Windows” gets everyone under one metaphorical roof. But there are dozens of ways to observe the universe outside — and to let it gaze back in.
Mount Hope World Singers presents “The Hundred Windows” at 8 p.m. for two performances, one on June 5 and one on June 7, both at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Ave. Each performance will also be livestreamed. More details and ticket information at mounthopeworldsingers.org/events.
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
