Guy Harries

CURRENT... 

PAST PROJECTS 

based on the novel by Marina Lewycka
LIBRETTO: Ace McCarron
MUSIC: Guy Harries
STAGE DIRECTION: Ilonka van den Bercken
PRODUCTION HOUSE: Kameroperahuis, Zwolle

Synopsis
In the idyll of the English countryside, on a beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field, and around their two caravans, a little group of strawberry pickers is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. But who picks our strawberries these days? The Ukrainians: Irina, just off the coach from Kiev, and eager to improve her excellent English and find true love with a romantic Englishman; Andriy, the miner's son from the other Ukraine; the Poles: Yola, the voluptuous gang mistress ; Emanuel, the round eyed eighteen-year-old from Malawi, come to England to look for his sister. But these are a group leading dangerous lives - exploitative employers, British regulations and gang masters with guns will all threaten their existence as they take to the caravan road until each of them peels off to find their destiny.
A number of parallel stories run through the book – each of the characters bringing to the story their own unique identity, influenced by their ethnic and national background, their fears, troubles, and passions.

It is a road movie, a gangster action thriller, a love story, a comedy and a tragedy all rolled into one. It is also a document of a harsh social reality. 

IMAGINARY FRIENDS (2008-10)
words, music, images by Guy Harries

Something weird has happened to communication these days. With e-mail, instant messaging and virtual world environments we are losing our bodies. We live in parallel realities. We choose who we want to be. Our identities change. Our friends are imaginary. And so are we.

In this performance, a story about world-zapping and changing personalities will be told in a wild combination of improvised and composed sound, words, images, electronics, theatre and unexpected turns in which real and imaginary friends finally meet.

Performers:
Guy Harries - voice, computer, live drawing
Alfredo Genovesi - guitar, pedals, electronics
DJ DNA - turntablism
David Marks - violin

JASSER DE OPERA (2006/07)

A chamber opera, about a Palestinian actor who is about to go on stage to play the role of Shylock - which brings a lot of issues to the forefront. Based on a monologue by Abdelkader Benali, and featuring Jannie Pranger and Sabri Saad El Hamus. A Bodylab Art Foundation production.

INFANTRY (2001/02), OPEN CUTS (2003/04), THE SECOND (2007)

A series of collaborations with artist Meira Asher, all of which explore different aspects of childhood. The first deals with child soldiers and child manipulation, and included both a performance and a CD release. Open Cuts continued the theme with more free improvisation. The Second tackles the subject of the personal subjective world of a child.All three are Bodylab productions.

STEREO DOGS (2002)

An interactive music and video performance dealing with physicality, human relationships and the number 2.
Using imagery and concepts from the world of biological science a narrative emerges - a story of two entities separate, joined together and torn apart. Biological processes and behaviours such as splitting, reproduction, infection and mutilation are an analogy for the human condition.