The Mushroom that Swallowed the Moon Whole (2024)

Ritika is currently gathering an artistic team together to create The Mushroom that Swallowed the Moon Whole. This is a bi-lingual operatic work about the epic impacts of self-absorption, laziness, and resignation around the crisis of climate change. Sung in Bangla and English in a South Asian folk opera format of stylized speech and narration, this opera converges multiple artistic disciplines and practice-led writings on the ecological crisis and the human condition. It uses narrative memory, performance, visual representation, characters from our natural and cultural worlds, and a live orchestra to conduct a creative inquiry into our collective ego. Through it, Ritika hopes to expand access to artistic experiences that center South Asian musical theater and modes of oral storytelling.

This 3-day event is aimed at bringing audiences from the U of M community to access performance-based forms of critical inquiry, where people will be able to experience how art can be used to communicate complex ideas about climate, identity, and migration. This event will bring loyal opera audiences to engage with Opera in non-classical languages.

April 16-21, 2024, Luminary Arts Center.

Project Team: Nida Sajid, Shinjan Sengupta, Joshua Martin

Supported by:  

• Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota 

• Luminary Arts Center, MN Opera

• Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals