OPUS 1 Fits The Tech Bill

A new art, music and tech festival called OPUS 1 will debut Oct. 7 at Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods in Columbia, Md., presented by the Howard Hughes Corporation that developed the planned community between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

null – Chrysalis Stage
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Adjacent to Merriweather Post Pavilion, the signature feature and focus of the festival is the Chrysalis Stage that debuted earlier in the summer. As was reported at the time, the Chrysalis Stage would be used for concerts and other events in the park.

OPUS 1 certainly falls under the category of “other.”

“Celebrating the art of sound, the inaugural one-day festival blends immersive art installations, mesmerizing music performances and treetop projection mapping,” says a Hughes Corporation announcement. “State-of-the-art technology coexists with artisanal offerings and a bonfire hearth to provide a surreal sensory journey.”

OPUS 1 is curated by Wild Dogs International, a New York City-based art production, curation and design company, and will include 11 “large-scale activation areas.”

Among them are the Lighting Cloud, an inflatable air pavilion that “offers a euphoric performance environment and an iconic backdrop for dynamic projection;” Híbridos Live, a performance project that explores Brazilian ritual dance and sounds through live video mixing and performance; the Color Field Immersion, which explores “modes of perception and the experience of sound, light, and space;” the Mutual Wave Machine, an interactive neurofeedback installation; and the Dream Machine, based on the hallucination-inducing sculpture by Brion Gysin but performed on the Chrysalis Stage.

“Audio-visual arts converge through site-specific experiences to manifest the spirit of the woods in a way that is both subtle and spectacular, intimate and immersive,” said Ken Farmer, creative director of Wild Dogs International. “The forest is a liminal space where boundaries are blurred between audience and performer, onlooker and participant, between people, genres, and media. OPUS 1 is an enveloping journey down the rabbit hole.”

There will also be an “upscale culinary village” made up of regional purveyors, because all that sensory immersion can cause one to really work up an appetite.

OPUS 1 is free and open to all ages, but eventgoers are encouraged to reserve tickets at opusmerriweather.com for “expedited entry.”