Raúl de Nieves & Colin Self Harmonize | Art21 "New York Close Up"

[STEADY PERCUSSIVE SOUNDS]

[PERFORMER SINGING]

[RAUL DE NIEVES]
I remember moving to New York

and coming here to The Kitchen
to see a production,

and now our work is being mounted here.

["New York Close Up"]

It's not a dream anymore!

[COLIN SELF] This is our first time ever
making a real opera.

["Raúl de Nieves and Colin Self Harmonize"]

[SCREAMING IN UNISON]

[DE NIEVES] I play the dog.

[SELF] I'm the old woman.

[DE NIEVES] And the old woman is the wisest.

[SELF LAUGHS]

[DE NIEVES] She is.

[SELF] I don't know, I think the dog might
be the wisest.

[DE NIEVES] Well the dog and the old woman are
the same person actually, so...

[SELF] But they are the same person.

[DE NIEVES]
--Or maybe it's like I give you my hand or something.

--Like what if we never touch hands or something?

--We're so far away from one another.

[MOANING IN UNISON]

[DE NIEVES]
--I think that's really good.

[SELF]
--Yeah.

[BOTH LAUGH]

[DE NIEVES]
--You're so crazy

[SELF]
--That's cool.

--You and I having this really still interaction...

[DE NIEVES] Colin and I met while we were
both asked to play a show.

[SELF] I think I had just moved to New York,

and I remember that I was trying to find
a sense of community or place.

[BOTH SCREAM]

[DE NIEVES] I had recently migrated from Mexico
to America,

and music was the first escape
of my everyday reality.

This is when I was starting my band, Haribo.

We were kind of creating more of
a noise soundscape to this performance.

Colin had performed before us.

I just remember seeing him thrashing around.

[SELF] It was just one of those things
of watching someone perform and being like,

"Oh my gosh, we are from the same universe!"

[DE NIEVES] It's never been me, me, me, me,
me, you know--

it's always been me and you.

[SELF] Us, us, us, us, us, us, us, us.

[DE NIEVES] My friends teach me how to give,
how to receive.

Without the little help each one of us gives
one another,

it would actually be very hard to sustain
a normal life.

[DE NIEVES]
--It's real!

My friends are my guidance.

[SELF]
--Why don't we get into a circle.

[PERFORMERS SINGING]

The majority of the people who've joined

have been a part of this ongoing choir practice
that I've been leading.

[SELF SINGING]
--Letting it warm up the room.

I started just thinking about what does it mean
to gather people together to sing?

What can come from that?

It felt really powerful in a way that
I wasn't anticipating.

[DE NIEVES] Personal experiences really helped
shape the work.

In Mexico, we didn't really have much
exposure to contemporary art.

So I always looked up to the performers I
saw on the street,

portraying these characters through
costume and props

and spontaneous street performance.

Performance really opened up a
void for me to experiment with art.

The sets and the costumes
were made from pretty much nothing.

We always wanted this grand set of doors.

Through the help of non-for-profit organizations,
like Materials for the Arts,

we were able to acquire all the gems.

Everything else was just
a labor of love.

[SELF] "The Fool" itself is a characterization
of learning--

that this practice of discovery,

by the time they finish their journey,
are back where they began.

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]

[STRING AND VOCAL PERFORMANCE INTENSIFIES]

[DE NIEVES] Every character on stage is
the fool

including the child, the mother,

the fools that are hidden in the background,

the old woman and dog.

[YELLING]

Essentially,
each character sees something different.

And that's why at the end

the dog comes back
and speaks to this old woman

to remind her that
she has had all this wisdom within herself.

[PERFORMERS SINGING]