Between the Rooms

I have been fascinated by Emily Dickinson’s poetry and vivid imagination for many years and am thrilled to have this opportunity to further explore her world in collaboration with choreographer and filmmaker Kim Brandstrup, singer Joélle Harvey, conductor Eric Jacbobsen, The Knights, LA Opera and dancers Alina Cojocaru and Matthew Ball from The Royal Ballet in London.

Between the Rooms weaves together three poems by Emily Dickinson ("I Heard a Fly buzz—when I died"; "I Cannot Live With You"; "I died for Beauty—but was scarce") with fragments from Dickinson’s Envelope Poems. Composed in 2020, themes of solitude and creativity resonate with the experience of enforced isolation as a result of the pandemic. Spending the majority of the last 15 years of her life between her bedroom and her garden, Dickinson wrote her poetry in solitude. From the confines of her bedroom she was able to conjure imagined worlds and landscapes of great vibrancy. Between the Rooms evokes the audible realm that envelopes this lonely figure and explores her journey from solitude to an imaginary world—weaving melodic fragments with hymn-like statements that are conjured by the instrumentation of string quintet with soprano voice.

—Anna Clyne