Vancouver Opera Features Jordan Baraniecki Light Show
Jordan Barniecki's projections swirl in the background ahead of Vancouver Opera's performance of Cavalleria Rusticana. (Image courtesy Jordan Baraniecki)
Posted on
The artist and ECU MFA student worked closely and intensely with VO staff to create accompaniment for the company’s recent production of Cavalleria Rusticana.
A recent performance by the Vancouver Opera (VO) featured visual accompaniment by artist and ECU MFA student Jordan Baraniecki, marking the first time the VO has worked with an Emily Carr student in such a role.
Jordan, who was selected by the VO from among applicants to an open call earlier this year, says he received extraordinary support as he learned on the fly during the short run-up to the performance of the Italian one-act opera, Cavalleria Rusticana.
“Stage director Amanda Testini was there to help me understand the cues for the music and projection design consultant Sean Nieuwenhuis was there to mentor me through the technical side of things,” he told me via email following the pair of weekend performances in February. “All I truly had to focus on were the images and the ability to tell the story through visuals. As tight of a deadline as this project was, I felt at ease with my team as we put together this visually captivating show.”
The show was lauded by journalist Janet Smith, who called the staging an “epic, emotional performance,” with “swirling visuals” making a “grand affair” of the experience.
“Jordan Baraniecki’s swirling abstract projections, which conjure, by turns, rippling waters, burning Sicilian sun, and heart-pumping blood, added to the mood and the visual appeal of the concert,” she wrote in her Feb. 13 review, adding, “It’s amazing to note that Baraniecki is an Emily Carr University master’s student who has never worked in opera, and was mentored here, in a new collaboration, with projection designer Sean Nieuwenhuis.”
Jordan notes he has previous experience with the performing arts, having spent three seasons working back-of-house with Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, and working as an IATSE 300 member for two years setting up concerts, musicals and events in Saskatoon. But having his work directly visible by audience members is definitely a shift, he adds.
“It’s interesting to have work up at the front, on full display, and to experience that, because what I actually really liked about the theatre and my role in the past was that all of my input was behind the scenes,” he says.
Light and Dark in the infinity box at Herschel in Gastown. (Image courtesy Jordan Baraniecki)
The projections in Cavalleria Rusticana were drawn from Jordan’s ongoing series of ink works, which he often photographs in extreme close-up during his spare time. He then manipulates those photos on his computer, creating movement, colour shifts and other subtle changes. Jordan says the particular demands of the VO project were a perfect fit for his shifting, abstract animations.
“The beauty of the Vancouver Opera’s proposal was it was all about visual storytelling,” he says. “So, there wasn’t a specific narrative that had to be achieved for this project. However, the visual storytelling was really about emotion, so all of the colour choices and textual choices were based on the emotions of the performance itself.”
Meanwhile, Jordan has another small series of works currently on view in the infinity box gallery at Herschel Supply Co.’s Vancouver flagship store in Gastown. Having encountered the work of another Emily Carr alum in the space, Jordan pitched Herschel on a couple of ideas. The results is an installation featuring a trio of transparent, molded acrylic sculptures on white stands, activated by a ceiling-mounted LED video screen that projects moving images of Jordan’s ink drawings, much like his projections for the Vancouver Opera.
Jordan Baraniecki. (Image courtesy Jordan Baraniecki)
“I’m really interested in the way I could transform plexiglass into something visually captivating or that offers some kind of solace — similar to the work of Tara Donovan,” Jordan says of the installation, titled Light and Dark. “What happens is the light that comes down onto the sculptures is either absorbed or reflected, making this maximalist light show where you are completely absorbed with colour, light, reflection.”
You can view Light and Dark in person at Herschel Supply Co., at 347 Water Street in Vancouver. Read Janet Smith’s review of the VO’s staging of Cavalleria Rusticana now, via The Stir. Find out more about the Vancouver Opera at vancouveropera.ca.
Visit Jordan’s website or follow him on Instagram to learn more about his work.