45 Barrie Kosky: “From the outset, I was very clear that I didn’t want to tell Du Yun what to write about. I believe the subject must come from the composer; it has to be personal. We explored different ideas, including film adaptations, but when those fell away, it became clear that we needed to create something original. Du Yun told me she had been reading extensively about dementia, and was fascinated by questions of memory, forgetting, fragmentation and disintegration.” Du Yun: “I’m interested in what remains when memory slips away. I think about dementia not just as an illness, but also as a metaphor. When I look at the world, I see societies repeating cycles of forgetting: forgetting history, making the same mis- takes again. There’s also a very personal dimension for me. As an immigrant, I know the feeling of having language fail you – not finding the right word, or the right cultural reference to express what you feel. It’s like you’re looking for the right box in your mind and not being able to open it.” Text: Laura Roling Photo: Jan Windszus Barrie Kosky: “Du Yun knew early on that she didn’t want to tell a single story, but several. Together with her librettist Royce Vavrek, she developed three narratives set in different places, connected by the theme of dementia and the mythologial figure of the fox: an ambivalent, almost Dionysian presence that dissolves memory while healing it at the same time.” Du Yun: “Fox figures appear across cultures as tricksters, seducers, healers and destroyers. They sit between the real and the unreal. The presence of the fox allows the work to inhabit a fantastical, mythological dimension as well.” Barrie Kosky: “Du Yun’s music may appear eclectic to the outside world, but for her it’s completely natural. Her approach aligns closely with my own. I don’t believe in hierarchies between high and low culture – I can be inspired by Nietzsche in the morning and The Simpsons in the afternoon.” Du Yun: “Our lives today are not mono- culturural, and I think that’s something we should embrace and reflect in art. If we don’t represent the complexity of our lives – the contradictions, the differences, the plurality – then we’re being complacent.” “ I don’t believe in hierarchies between high and low culture” Barrie Kosky uld
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