Welsh National Opera commissions film series to explore arts in a time of crisis

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Welsh National Opera (WNO) has commissioned and created a series of films - Creating Change - which challenge and explore the role of the arts in a time of crisis.

The five writers involved – Sarah Woods, Eric Ngalle Charles, Shreya Sen Handley, Edson Burton and Miles Chambers - have all been working with WNO on Migrations, a new opera which was due to open in autumn 2020, but has been postponed to autumn 2021. 

For Migrations, the writers were influenced by their own personal experiences of migration to create a series of stories about the boldness and resilience of the human spirit and how this has contributed to the diversity of modern society. 

Creating Change develops this by exploring types of social inequality and injustice that have been deepened through the Covid-19 crisis and asking what we can do to create real change.

The Creating Change films were released as a collective on 7 December and will be available to view on WNO’s website.

Maris Lyons WNO Producer said: 'We are living in unprecedented times. International crisis has exposed the inequalities and injustices in our society more starkly than ever before. Growing economic, social, and physical uncertainty has shifted the ground beneath us.

'As a national arts organisation rising to the challenge of the new normal yet still unable to perform live work in theatres, we are feeling more keenly than ever that bringing artists and ideas together through freedom of expression, helps us make sense of an unstable world. ‘Creating Change’ is an artistic conversation of this kind, where writers, composers, singers and musicians, celebrate the role of art to reimagine a future of lasting social change.'

For further information and to access the film, visit wno.org.uk/creatingchange