And you ghosts rise blue - an im/material opera in three acts
Premiered by Indigo Cook as an MFA thesis at Duke University, 12 February 2025 at the von der Heyden Studio Theater
Re-staged 18 February 2026 at Live at Bay 7 in Durham, NC.
Written as an experimental pasticcio opera in three acts, And you ghosts rise blue alchemizes movement, sound, and light to open a rift in the space-time continuum and call in voices past and future, real and unreal. The voices – sounding alongside a collaborative collective of dancers, musicians, poets, actors, and visual artists – form a ghostly chorus with whom we sing of the ephemeral, the infinite, and the im/possible.
Designed and Directed by Indigo Cook
Cast
Michela Arietti, actor and dancer *+
Erich Barganier, musician *
Caroline Brecke, dancer +
Sara Caldiero, poet and dancer (disembodied) *+
Natalia Cervantes, dancer *+
Mozhgan Chahian, musician *+
Josué Collado, musician *+
Indigo Cook, musician (disembodied) *+
Sasha Faison, dancer *
Iain Fletcher, Minotaur in the Maze +
Mia Foglesong, musician +
Dani Mendez, visual artist (disembodied) *+
Lauren Neefe, poet and soundwriter (disembodied) *+
Julia Piper, dancer *+
Kalei Porter, dancer *+
Jordan Reynosa, actor (disembodied) *+
Severin Sargent-Catterton, dancer (disembodied) *+
Amare Swierc, actor and dancer *+
Nathaniel Woolley, actor and dancer (disembodied) *+
-
*original premiere
+2026 staging
Collaborators
Natalia Cervantes, Reader artistic advisor
James Clotfelter, co-lighting designer
Uinta Cook, dramaturg
Ethan Eldred, production mentor
Iain Fletcher, Reading Room coordinator
Julia Piper, costume stylist
MFA Thesis Advisory Committee
Jingqiu Guan, Michael Kliën, John Supko
“And you ghosts rise blue from alchemy from a forest of hunted beasts of twisted machines of a jujube tree of rotten flesh of a basket of oysters of eyes of a network of straps in the beautiful sisal of human skin I would have words vast enough to contain you and you earth taut earth drunk.”
- Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
