Dylan Chmura-Moore of the Manitowoc Symphony Orchestra approached me with an exciting challenge: to create distinctive visuals for their highly anticipated season opener on October 5th, 2024. After brainstorming together, we landed on the idea of a shadow puppetry-inspired film, an evocative medium that would seamlessly intertwine with the symphony’s live performance. The concept was ambitious, blending the timeless art of shadow play with the dynamic power of orchestral music.
Over the following months, I designed and crafted a series of shadow puppets and atmospheric scenes, each tailored to evoke the spirit of the music. Once the physical elements were complete, I transitioned them into a digital framework, animating and refining the sequences to align perfectly with the symphony’s score.
The final result was two distinct films, each tailored to a specific piece of music. The first, an 11-minute visual journey accompanying Edward Elgar’s Three Bavarian Dances, captured the elegant whimsy of Elgar’s melodies. The second, a 20-minute piece set to Aaron Copland's Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, embodied the robust, rhythmic vitality of the American West. Though both films shared a cohesive shadow puppetry aesthetic, they were designed with subtle stylistic variations to reflect the unique character and narrative of each composition.
Together, these films transformed the symphony’s performance into a fully immersive, multimedia experience, offering audiences a visual and auditory feast that celebrated the intersection of tradition and innovation.
Statement from the Artist
This project is a visual exploration of Edward Elgar’s Three Bavarian Dances, a suite that evokes a deep connection to place, innocence, and nostalgia. I tried to interpret the sound of Elgar's music but travel through emotional landscapes where memory and rhythm intertwine to create a sense of both belonging and loss.
Each dance in Elgar’s suite offers a unique window into a world both familiar and elusive. The animation seeks to capture these moments, where innocent joy and melancholic reality coexist, where whimsical beauty and harsh devastation are two sides of the same coin. Using a hand-drawn silhouette style, I’ve allowed the simplicity of form to echo the music’s pastoral charm, while also leaving space for a deeper narrative beneath the surface.
The first dance brims with festive energy, portraying moments of simple celebration—life unfolding in its lighthearted exploration. The second dance slows the pace, offering a contemplative reflection on introspection found in quiet moments. In stark contrast, the third dance takes a more sobering turn, following a figure as they must face their reality of destruction and loss. Here, the remnants of a once-thriving place speak to the resilience and fragility of life and the pain that one cannot return to a place.