ADAM LINDER “The WANT”
By ASHLEY GIFFORD
A low vibrating rumble bellowed through Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall as an eager audience filed in for the premiere of Adam Linder’s, “ The WANT.” Prior to attending, I had heard that “The WANT,” was full of “glass shattering operatic vocals” - and as The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art’s director’s Kristan Kenndy put it, “we were surprised the roof didn’t blow off!”
As I waited in anticipation, the cold marble wall I was leaning on began to warm with my rising excitement. We took our seats, the lights low and blue - someone is on stage in a defensive fetal-like position. It was Linder, I later came to realize. The scene hushes the incoming audience members into a whispered lull. The atmosphere is set.
The press release states that “The WANT” is an exchange sung by four performers, with a libretto that is littered with interjections from Jacques Derrida to Missy Elliott. Linder approaches the business of language as the Self’s gateway drug between rational thought and rhapsodic expression. Doesn’t the interplay of language rendered in vocal music parallel the dynamics of various markets?”
I dug deeper before the show and saw the opera Linder performs is based on French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès’ In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields, 1985. Koltès a play is of an act between a “Client” and a “Dealer” and has typically been played in a more theatre show. Linder uses the skeleton of this play as the basis of his opera which involves more of an “Offeror” and “Offeree” dynamic.
Linder and the singers, dancers, and actors that make up “The WANT”; Jess Gadani, Justin F. Kennedy, Jasmine Orpilla, and Roger Sala Reyner. Alongside Shahryar Nashat who staged the opera and Ethan Braun, who wrote the score. The performance consists of concise, exacting, movements alongside the intense and deliberate vocals that are enrapturing and living up to the hype. The lights throughout the performance cannot go unmentioned, it felt as if it was an equal performer in the opera. Not only literally lightening the stage but changing and evolving with each gesture, movement, and harmony with the score.
Linder uses language and various texts weaving them together to form a narrative that consists of materials from artists, critical thinkers, and musicians. Adding in lyrics from Tricky and Missy Elliot, alongside and amongst philosophical works, referencing economy and desire, and the power of language. The performance left me in an introspective trance regarding the use of language and how we express ourselves, circumnavigating our emotions, wants, desires, needs, necessities into communication. How we communicate with each other is already pre-disposed to certain cultural and geographical influences
ADAM LINDER The WANT. Photo by the writer.