Music & Words: Helen Epega

When one world burns and the sky forgets, whose stories survive and what becomes our inHERitance?

‘Of Earth and Quill’ is a visionary one-woman opera by Helen Epega (The Venus Bushfires), creator of ‘Song Queen: A Pidgin Opera’. Set in a post-apocalyptic future still taking form, it explores survival, cultural memory, identity and belonging through a multisensory fusion of operatic voice, African percussion, movement, sound, visual imagery and poetic storytelling.

Inspired by the enduring power of stories and the human desire to remember, the work unfolds through a series of striking visual and sonic movements. As memory fragments and histories fade, a creator searches for meaning amongst the remnants of what has been left behind, grappling with questions of inheritance, authorship and belonging.

About the show

As a synaesthete, Helen experiences music as colour, texture and shape. This unique perspective informs a richly layered multisensory approach that combines live performance, visual art, creative captioning and audience interaction to create an immersive and thought-provoking experience.

This special presentation also offers an opportunity to experience HiQuu®, Helen Epega’s patent-pending multisensory infrastructure system, through a live demonstration integrated within the performance. Developed through Helen’s artistic practice and research, HiQuu® explores how live and digital experiences might be translated across multiple sensory pathways in real time.

Alongside the performance, haptic costume prototypes developed through a collaboration with students from London College of Fashion explore how touch, vibration and embodied sensation can become part of the language of live performance. The work builds on Helen’s wider investigations into multisensory experiences, accessibility and participation, including creative labs developed in partnership with Brent Sensory Services.

Underpinning the work is Access as Creative Core™, Helen’s accessibility-led creative methodology, which positions access not as an accommodation but as a catalyst for artistic innovation, creative expression and deeper audience connection.

Together, Of Earth and Quill, HiQuu and the haptic costume prototypes explore how memory, meaning and experience might be carried across different sensory pathways, opening new possibilities for participation while inviting us to consider what we inherit and what we leave behind.

https://www.tete-a-tete.org.uk/event/of-earth-and-quill-2/

Tuesday 15 September - 7:00pm