S04E01: Deniz Khateri, Theater Artist, Writer, Director, Animator

Ensemble pianist Tae Kim sits down with Theater Artist, Writer, Director, Animator Deniz Khateri to talk about her work in shadow puppetry, libretto writing inspired by Iranian women!

Tae Kim: Hello Guerillas. This is episode one, season four of Guerilla Opera Podcast. My name is Tae Kim, ensemble pianist, and I’ll be your host for this episode. Today we’ll focus more on the non musical aspects of an opera, and we’re joined by Deniz Khateri, whose shadow puppetry enchanted the audience and the musicians alike in Marti Epstein’s ‘Rumpelstiltskin’. Her collaboration with Aliana de la Guardia, ‘Papillon’ by Kaija Saariaho, will be showcased in an upcoming Guerilla Backyard Bash on the 21st and 22nd of this month. Let’s dig in. Thank you for joining us today. Let’s start with your work in ‘Rumpelstiltskin’. This was your first collaboration with Guerilla Opera. How was that experience?

Deniz Khateri: Well first of all, Guerilla Opera, I had been stalking them for years because I really like their work. The fact that they’re open to experimenting with pretty much anything in the opera, and very exciting things; that made me a fan of their work. So, when they actually offered for me to collaborate with them, I was really happy, and I was really glad that that’s happening.

Generally yeah, I mostly do theater, and I work on plays. I’ve also done shadow puppetry works on contemporary classical music, so a lot of pieces that I had worked on were not actually plays and were just pieces of music, like music sheets that I had to listen to and know what the instruments are going to be, and things like that. This was actually my first time collaborating with an opera company, which, again, it’s a unique company, it’s not like a very typical opera company because they do very different things. So yeah, it was really exciting, it was a very interesting process. The fact that they were really open to changing things, which I am really good at, it drives people crazy, when they work with somebody who tends to change ideas and come up with something very last minute. They were very open to that, we actually did our first performance in Boston with shadow puppets, but then for our work in New York we decided to go with the digital shadow puppets piece, which is technically an animation, but I don’t like to call it an animation because that was something where I kind of deliberately wanted to use whatever I would use in the shadow puppetry techniques and the shadow puppetry shows. So I tried to do it only in the digital world, so I did not use any techniques that you would use in animation; for example if you gave all of those designs for puppets to an animator, what they would usually do is you see the cartoonish walk cycle, you know, whatever choices that they make, it’s very close to what animators usually do, with what I usually do with my own animations, but for this specific project, I decided to kind of recreate the effects that I would do in a live shadow puppetry show. That was a very interesting experience because I’ve always wanted to experiment with that. I wanted to see, okay, if I limit myself to what would be possible onstage, how would the animation look? There are parts in ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ that you might think, how would that be possible onstage, which, it is possible. It would look a little bit different, but it would be kind of the same impression.

In terms of the process, the design, I had the pleasure of working with Marti Epstein, who was the composer of Rumpelstiltskin, before this collaboration, so I’m a fan of her music, I know her style, so that really made things a little bit easier for me. The challenges that I had, one of them, was that I wanted Rumpelstiltskin to be genderless, and not so much in a way that it would be, not a human, not a creature, I wanted it to be something that belonged to the earth, but also you can’t really tell what’s happening. Also because I found some humor in some parts of Marti’s music, and also the libretto, so the way that I approached the designing process was that I was looking for that humor in the puppets. That was something that I was kind of struggling with too, I was kind of debating whether to go with that humor or to go dead serious, but then when I went with the humor, with my instinct, I figured that in the times or the parts where the music and the libretto was very serious and very emotional, that humor actually worked.

Tae Kim: Any favorite moments or hardships you distinctly remember?

Deniz Khateri: We kind of decided to go with the digital version very last minute, which, I mean I like it, but in this case it was a lot of work in a very short time for me, so I had to make, it was I think around one hour, around 60 minutes of animation in three weeks. Thank God I had the puppets’ design, so the characters were there. I just had to come up with the style that I was looking for, and you know, all those things. That was a challenge for me definitely, also a very nice experience, because I finally got to experiment with what I wanted.

My favorite moments were the moments that I was with the group, because usually when you create a work of theater, it’s all about teamwork, it’s all about everybody being in the same room and experimenting together, and rehearsing and everything. With this project we didn’t really have the luxury of being together that much because it was just a very different process, and the availabilities were different, the recording sessions were separate from the rehearsals for stage. I had just moved to New York, so it was really hard for me to go back and forth, so we figured something out but it was mostly my assistant attending the rehearsals, I couldn’t really attend the rehearsals so often, which was something that I really missed, but my favorite moments were the moments that I could actually attend the rehearsals and be in the room with everybody else, and it was so much fun.

Tae Kim: I remember watching the production in Boston and was awestruck by the puppetry as it added a whole other dimension to the opera. Could you explain the art behind shadow puppetry?

Deniz Khateri: Yeah, I mean I’ve always been fascinated by shadows, and I think in terms of the medium that it has on it’s own, it’s under the umbrella of theater, right, so it’s a live performance, it needs rehearsals, it has all the elements of theater, but it has a very major key and characteristic, that I think it has to be considered when you choose it as your medium. There are a lot of productions that you go and watch, and it doesn’t use silhouettes, or shadows, but also there are a lot of productions that use silhouettes and shadows, and it’s magnificent, and it’s really beautiful and fascinating, but nobody really thinks about why it’s chosen that way, why people chose to use the shadows and silhouettes. I think one of the key characteristics of this medium is that it doesn’t necessarily belong -- the characters and the atmosphere that you create with shadow, it does not necessarily suggest any specific detail, like class, like race, like gender, unless you want to make it about those things, unless you want to highlight those things. For example you have a set--everything is silhouettes, everything is shadow--of a room, and in that room there is the shadow of a frame of a window. Because it’s a shadow, you can’t tell if it’s made of gold, or if it’s made of worn out wood. It doesn’t necessarily suggest the social class that your character is coming from in that show. That’s something that I love about it, and I try to use it so much. In Rumpelstiltskin for example, that was one of the things that I thought was a very good choice to use shadows, because let’s say that Rumpelstiltskin was to be voiced by Aliana, right, so the voice was a voice of a woman, and then the character, when you hear it you’re like okay that’s a woman, but when you see the image, it totally breaks these stereotypes. You don’t know what you’re listening to, what that creature is, what’s the story behind that creature. So I think that’s something that I really love about shadows, and using silhouettes.

One of the things that a lot of people use is to make very simple and minimalistic shapes, and use the shadows of those shapes. That simplicity, that minimalism can tell the story in a very subtle way. I think that the big question is whether you want those details to be shown or not, and if you want them would it be more effective if you just see them onstage, without a screen, no shadows, no silhouettes, everything in daylight, in stagelight, spotlight, or, whether you want to cover them. By covering I don’t mean it in a negative way, I mean trying to show it as a very basic human story, regardless of all of those backgrounds, or the ornaments.

Tae Kim: How did you personally become immersed in the world of shadow puppetry?

Deniz Khateri: Well shadow puppetry is actually one of the very first means of expression of humans. In ancient times, when man discovered fire, there was the shadow, and people would dance around it and you would see the shadows over the tent, so I think it’s very much like basic human nature. That’s what I love about it and I think that’s what makes everybody comfortable with making shadow puppets. As you mentioned, when you’re a kid, you start using the shadows, you start playing around with them…

Tae Kim: Like this? [Makes puppet with hands]

Deniz Khateri: [laughter] Yeah! You know, using your hands, and it’s very accessible, you can use just cheap materials, cheap paper; or you can go very ambitious with it, it could be the most expensive show that you’ve ever worked on. So it’s very flexible, it’s very human instinct, and in my country, Iran, that’s also one of the theater forms that people explore so much. Not so much recently, but in old times they used to use shadow puppets a lot. That was kind of in the back of my mind.

I think I remember once I had an idea for a project that was very cartoonish, but back in the day I didn’t know how to make animations, and I was like my job is to bring everything onstage, so how can I frame that onstage, and I just kept seeing silhouettes and shadows. So I was like why not make it a shadow puppetry show. So I started experimenting, I started learning on my own, and then later I took some workshops, I took some masterclasses, and I just got into it so much that I was fascinated by it, you know, it’s a great way to express and tell whatever story you would like to tell. It’s actually, as I said, very very flexible, it could be a very short piece with a lot of words to say, it could be totally silent but still have a lot of words to say, it could be only music; it actually works really well with modern music, as I’ve been experiencing it, but yeah. I just got into it, and loved it.

Tae Kim: That’s wonderful. Speaking of modern music, the production for Papillon by Saariaho in the upcoming Guerilla Backyard Bash has elements of shadow puppetry. Could you elaborate further on this work?

Deniz Khateri: Yeah, sure. I remember the first meetings that we had with Julia and Aliana, there was this discussion of having birds, or feathers, and having a creature come into flying. So we had this idea and I started listening to the music, and usually what I do is listen to the music several times and I let the sounds lead me to the visualization, as probably a lot of artists do. And what happened was just, my instinct was telling me that this was more about the process of getting into flying. The closest thing that came into my mind was the caterpillar making its own cocoon and becoming a butterfly, reaching to a point that it will finally fly. So we started experimenting with that idea, and initially I wanted to use shadow puppets for it, but then the longer I thought about it, the more I was convinced that it has to be--that the movement has to come from inside. When you manipulate a shadow puppet, or any puppet, as you breathe, the puppet moves. Even if you don’t move it, the puppet moves, but it’s still from the outside. So what I was thinking was that this actually shouldn’t be a shadow puppet, it has to be a silhouette of a person. So that’s why I talked to Aliana and Julia and we decided that it should be a human body, and it should be the silhouette of that human body, and then we can use the shadow of whatever we need for the set. So that’s how it initiated, and then we started experimenting with some movements, choreographing, and things like that, and this is what you’re about to see.

Tae Kim: Definitely looking forward to it. I did get a sneak preview of the production, and I remember it being so intricate and meticulous that it was hard for me to believe that this was actually realised during Covid. How has this pandemic affected your art making?

Deniz Khateri: Well, it has affected especially theater in a lot of ways, and I think we’re all, in the theater community, everybody's trying to make the best of this online medium for theater. And I think there are a lot of interesting things happening, and discoveries happening. One of the discoveries that I personally had was that actually shadow works, or shadow puppet works, work really well with this medium, because first of all, as you said, it could be very simple, it could be DIY, so it just needs cardboard that you have at home, paper, and scissors. As long as you have a white screen, which could be a white sheet hanging from your doorframe, you can make art. You don’t necessarily need to have a lot of people in the same room to make it happen, or a lot of technical requirements. So I think shadow puppetry is actually finding its own way through this online medium.

My own struggle for this is to come up with some ideas, maybe for the future, so that we actually feel the presence of the audience somehow. We can still record the performances and broadcast them live, but it’s still not the same as the experience of sitting in a theater, especially for the audience, and of course for the performer. I’m just hoping that we can find a way to do that, but in the meantime, I think shadow puppetry and silhouette work is really fine through this medium, because all you need to see is a white screen and some silhouettes and shadows on it, which does not really require a lot of lighting. Even if you’re meeting someone online via Zoom, or Skype, or whatever medium that you’re using, even if it's just a very simple meeting, you still need to adjust the light, and see how you look, and sometimes it doesn’t really work. With the shadows especially because they’re kind of two dimensional and flat, it’s easy to manipulate it so that the audience can have the best experience watching it.

Tae Kim: So I understand you’re also writing a libretto. So not only are you an artist, and you’re in theater, you’re also a librettist, and I’m guessing you’re a playwright as well?

Deniz Khateri: Yes. *laughs*

Tae Kim: So my question is what can’t you do. *laughs* So, actually, can you tell me about this libretto called ‘Salt’?

Deniz Khateri: Yes, so, ‘Salt’ was actually initiated from one of my friends. So the story--I don’t want to spoil the story--but I had a friend, and also like, I can’t say one friend but it was lots of friends, and lots of women around me in my country, who were trapped in marriages that were abusive for a long time. Some of them are still trapped in those marriages, and some of them are not because they’re either--their husbands passed away, or, they never got a divorce of course, but anyway, because I’ve seen those stories, and, you know, real stories around me, and seen how the woman was suffering, and how they were constantly looking for a way out, but they couldn’t because of the norms of the society. It’s interesting because when I say norms of the society, some of them immigrated to the US and to other countries, to Europe, and the norms of the society that I’m talking about is not necessarily the norms of the society of my country, they were still trapped even after 40-50 years of being in a another country. So it’s mostly the norms of the society that get stuck in your head, and the tradition, and what people will say about you afterward and things like that. So because of those things they could never think about getting a divorce, or it was because of financial situations; they weren’t independent, financially. There were just a lot of reasons that they couldn’t get out of those marriages. So I had this idea of a play that would actually portray these women.

What happened was that I decided that this story, it has to be a monologue, it has to be the woman alone in this. I wanted to make it about that woman, I didn’t want to bring the man into the story. So it has to be a monologue. It’s very intense, in terms of what’s behind it, and what the woman is saying all the time. Because of these two reasons, I decided that it has to be very short, but at the same time I was thinking that we’re going to be inside the mind of this woman, so it has to be a piece with a lot of sounds, and the actress should not be just saying the words, she should be maybe singing them, or yelling them, or be free to explore how she wants to say those words. I thought that this is actually perfect for a modern opera, a very short piece, and of course, when you think of experimental opera, which company comes to mind? *laughs*

Tae Kim: I could take a guess. *laughs*

Deniz Khateri: So I reached out to Aliana, and you know what happens next.

Tae Kim: That’s very intriguing, the project. I worked with Aliana, I want to say two years ago, and it was just an improv concert, at least my part was going to be improv, it was going to be piano and voice. I improvise quite a bit, which is fine, you know nothing jazz or anything but just whatever, I guess, in some ways my own language. Trying to improvise with others has been difficult, just because they don’t think how I think, and that’s a good thing. Aliana was kind of amazing to work with in a sense because I would give her ideas of what we can do, and some of the sounds that she would create or not create. It was very helpful to collaborate I think, in that sense, and she is definitely the best candidate for that, so I’m definitely looking forward to it. When is that going to happen then?

Deniz Khateri: That’s something that we need to decide and talk about. We don’t know yet because we were very occupied with ‘Papillon’, so hopefully after that we’ll talk about it. We just know that the music is going to be composed by my dear friend Bahar Royai, whom Guerilla Opera also knows, but I think it’s going to be their first collaboration.

Tae Kim: Very cool, very cool, I’m very much looking forward to that. Do you have any other future works? I mean, this is essentially a composition at this point, so not only do you do art; you write, you compose, I mean, you’re making me feel bad over here. *laughs*

Deniz Khatari: *laughing* I mean, I’m trying, and I wish I could do all of these things that you--

Tae Kim: But you are! This is amazing. So do you have any other works that are coming up, any other projects?

Deniz Khatari: Well actually I do, I have a project that’s going to be online, of course, at this time, but it’s actually designed for an online platform. So it’s going to be August 23rd, actually, right after our work. It’s going to be at The Tank, virtually, at The Tank NYC. They have a festival for online works which is called the Line Fest, and my piece is a very short play that will be performed at the same time by two companies, one in Tehran, and one in New York. What’s happening is that the audience will see both productions next to each other at the same time. One of them is in English, translated; so the play is Farsi and it’s translated to English, so they’ll see the American production next to the Iranian production, and it’s going to be all iranian staff and troupe. So what happens is that the audience can see both of them, but then they can vote which language they would like to hear. So this is how I’m kind of experimenting with the presence of the audience and the online platform. We actually performed it before, once, and I was very surprised with just how engaged the audience was. They were in the live chat fighting, like “Hey people vote for Farsi”, the other one would say “Please English, we want to see what’s happening”. So you could actually see that the audience was feeling the presence of each other because it all depended on the majority of the votes, it wasn’t just you changing the language for yourself, your vote would matter to everybody else as well. So we’re going to do that again hopefully August 23rd, it’s going to be suggested donation based because we want our audience in Iran to be able to see it and they can’t purchase tickets because of sanctions. So it’s pretty crazy, but yeah, if people would like to come see it, they can check out The Tank NYC.

Tae Kim: That’s amazing, what an amazing idea, and I’m definitely looking forward to that. Do you have anything to add?

Deniz Khateri: No, I just think they [Guerilla Opera] are awesome, and I hope to work with them again, and again, and I really hope that we can tour ‘Papillon’ to several places, because we’ve thought about the logistics of how to tour it around, even during thing pandemic, even for the online platform. We’ve had discussions about how to keep the social distancing, how to have the performers have masks in a way that it wouldn’t interfere with the performance, and the shadows specifically. I really hope that we could do it again and again.

Tae Kim: I hope so too, and I hope that we get to share our art in person soon. Thank you so much for your time and your invaluable insights, and looking forward to seeing you and your work at the Guerilla Backyard Bash. Very wonderful. And this concludes this episode of Guerilla Opera Podcast. Thank you for tuning in, and I hope you can join us at the Guerilla Backyard Bash later this month. Until then.