Early Earth Operas

London Coliseum and other venues 2000-2004
Music by John Browne, libretto by Jane Buckler
Directed by Steve Moffitt, Clare Whistler, Karen Gillingham
Set, costume, lighting and animation by Dody Nash

This piece was originally created for a Millennium event organised by Westminster City Council. Various arts organisations partnered schools to perform various stages of the Mystery Cycle.
ENO Baylis chose to commission Animalarky, a version of Noah’s Ark, from the writing team of Jane Buckler and John Browne.

Steve Moffitt, then Head of ENO Baylis, asked me to design some costumes. I at once asked to work with a choreographer. He suggested I could design without one, and so started a long journey that was to become the Early Earth Trilogy, and signalled a new way of working.

I stood in my studio and choreographed being a giraffe, termite, crocodile, etc, then physically imagined adding body extensions… Steve cast the children very carefully according to physique. The positions I had choreographed became the position of each child that they would return to after a movement sequence.

The original participating schools in Paddington had some of the highest refugee rates in London at that time. There were almost as many different countries represented as species of animals. The effect was one of a homogenous mass made up entirely of individuals.