Violet: DIVA

Introduction by Gideon Berger

A multi-faceted series of artworks and interventions confronting sexual violence in modern times. Violet is an unofficial deity on a mission to liberate the people through the power of rave.

Based on an artistic research project examining

1. Popular depictions of rape in 19th & 20th century opera,
2. Maria Goretti, a Catholic saint, murdered then venerated for her resistance to sexual violence,
3. Stories of contemporary sexual violence and the legal system’s inability to dispense justice or healing

Violet is a mixed reality character, musician and artist born of the combined liberation & rage of survivors of sexual violence. A digital incarnation of resistance to sexual violence. As a powerful warrior for social and political change, Violet harnesses the power of Electronic music to bring empowering catharsis to the group experience.

She is an unofficial deity, championing the healing and recovery of victims of sexual trauma through dance. She is also the personified manifestation of the hero these stories are consistently lacking. Part deity, part agitator, part anarchist and part vigilante, Violet haunts both virtual online spaces, raves and opera houses alike.

She has her debut this November at the Finnish Opera House and will continue to make a number of independent experiences across 2023 alongside Gideon Berger.

Creative Director and Composer – Stephanie Singer
Creative Technology – Mesmer

For Mesmer:
Animation Director – Ian William Galloway
Systems Designer – Salvador Bettencourt Avila
Animator – Jachym Bouzek
Animator – Rafael Vartanian
Animator – Rena Iizawa
Animator – Sophie Bramley
Animation Consultant – Pete Wallace
Software Engineer – Daberechi Ukoha-Kalu
Storyboard Artist – Barbora Šenoltová
Editor – Jacob Krumpolc

Producer for BitterSuite – Lucy Atkinson
Creative Consultation – Gideon Berger
Character Creation – Freyja Sewell
Music Producer – Amanda Moyo
Choreography – David Andrew Reid
Violet body (dance) – Josh Graetz
Violet body (aerial) – Georgia Redgrave
Rigger – Ilya Varty
Vocals – J Hoard, Lore Lixenberg
Drums and Percussion – Tim Doyle

Produced by BitterSuite

“Why do the majority of operatic divas in Western opera experience sexual violence then die, commit suicide or expire for no reason?”

A year long R&D for BitterSuite’s newest immersive music experience ‘FEEL’.

‘FEEL’ centres the narrative of Tosca. Remixing Puccini’s ecstatically beautiful score, and flipping the narrative. ‘FEEL’ is structured as a surreal, transcendent and at times straight up comedic, ceremony of deliverance, hosted by Violet – our hyper-deity. Across an hour and half, Violet appears to Tosca as a hyperdeity, and exorcises the “demons” within her story and within Tosca herself – shame, vengeance, suicide. Instead Violet blesses and releases Tosca of the need to play out this demonic narrative, and indeed for a brief moment other diva’s too (Carmen, Lulu, Clytemnestra, Lucretia). Instead this is about feeling. Feeling into pain, shame, and what it teaches us about the world around us and its expectations of survivors. This is about liberating the operatic world, as a microcosm of society, from this repetitive trope that experiencing sexual violence is impossible to survive with our mental health, sexuality and happiness in tact. In FEEL Violet guides the diva’s towards an ecstatic culmination which is a blissful, hopeful and exquisite new operatic rave free of shame, destruction and yes… even suicide.

With Violet’s influence Tosca is a sex-positive survivor, one that fights the misogyny of the chief of police that rapes her, and survives to tell the tale. Enriched by rage and with Violet’s help she instead focuses on healing from sexual violence by feeling into her own radical pleasure. ‘FEEL’ is a liberating tour de force of driving bass and unstoppable groove. Created by survivors, designed for the general public.