The New York Premiere Of Bill T. Jones Powerful Modern Opera

Opera is often seen as a tradition that's stuck in the past, but in the right hands it can reach new heights, as it does in the New York premiere of American choreographer Bill T. Jones' genre-bending modern opera We Shall Not Be Moved. At a time of renewed political and racial unrest, the powerful piece transforms the classic art form by blending it with spoken word, contemporary dance and video projections, as well as jazz and R&B.

Told through the eyes of five teens from Philadelphia, We Shall Not Be Moved explores the MOVE crisis in 1985, where a siege between police and Black liberation group MOVE ended in the bombing of a neighbourhood. Poetry meets civil rights history in this ambitious new work.