Red Beads is a gothic, coming-of-age fairy-tale/opera, choreographed aerially. Lee Breuer’s performance poem, drawn from an original story by Polina Klimovitskaya, explores the eerie family dynamic of a daughters’ transition into womanhood and the gift, from mother to daughter, of the red beads, a metaphor for the passage of power and sexuality. Using only wind, Basil Twist transforms swaths of fabric into luminous, quivering, ephemeral sets and puppets- Along the way, challenging our perception of space and proportion. Ushio Torikai’s haunting, dissonant score swells and ebbs, driving the story while evoking the psychological tension one equates with Hitchcock.

**Special music rehearsals were sponsored by a TCG/MetLife Foundation Extended Collaboration Grant.