PROTOTYPE Festival | EMEL: Everywhere We Looked Was Burning

Created, Performed, and Co-Creative-Directed by EMEL
Stage Direction and Co-Creative Direction by Jessica Grindstaff
Co-Produced by Beth Morrison Projects and KiWi Productions
Co-Presented by PROTOTYPE Festival and BRIC Arts Media
Creative Producer: Kim Whitener
Executive Producer: Stephen Hendel

Originally commissioned and developed with the support of Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater

EMEL: Everywhere We Looked Was Burning is a new theatrical concert by Tunisian-born, Brooklyn-based composer and performer, EMEL.

On the fifteenth anniversary of her breakthrough song “Kelmti Horra” (“My Word Is Free”), hailed as the anthem of the Tunisian Revolution, EMEL revisits her story on her own terms: EMEL–the public symbol, the uncompromising woman–at the core, an artist navigating the tensions between freedom and sacrifice, resistance and disillusionment, feminism and motherhood.

Blending original music, movement, video, and personal storytelling, the piece is inspired by Emel’s memories and North African cultural roots, and the legacies of women artists who have paid the price of challenging the boundaries imposed on them. Drawing on African trap, batucada, Arabic reggaeton, hip-hop, drum ’n’ bass, and North African musical traditions, EMEL: Everywhere We Looked Was Burning unfolds as an expansive and urgent portrait of identity, resilience, and transformation, illuminating the interconnected histories and futures of women across the global diaspora.

At its heart, EMEL: Everywhere We Looked Was Burning asks, who is EMEL, the woman behind the revolutionary voice, and what does freedom mean to her after all these years?

A talkback with the creative team will follow the performance on January 20.

PROTOTYPE is produced by Beth Morrison Projects, a trailblazer in the creation and presentation of contemporary, multi-disciplinary opera-theatre and music-theatre works. The visionary festival is the only one of its kind in New York City and around the country – producing and presenting a wide spectrum of works, from intimate black-box experiences to larger chamber opera productions, valuing artistic, curatorial, and producorial risk-taking.

PROTOTYPE is committed to surprising our audiences and confounding their expectations through content, form, and relevance. The festival gives voice to a diverse group of composers, librettists, performers and musicians across all genres, backgrounds, and cultures. In providing a recurring showcase of visionary opera-theatre and music-theatre pieces, the touring life of the work extends around the world. The festival also presents groundbreaking new works by international artists and has become a global reference of artistic excellence in the field of opera and music-theatre.

PROTOTYPE was co-founded in 2013 by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE under the leadership of Beth Morrison, Kristin Marting, and Kim Whitener.