Fresh off her Rome Prize fellowship in 2025, Jen Shyu presents an in-progress edition of her epic project {Fertile Land, Fertile Body}, a multilingual ritual opera comprising ancient and original music, dance, and projection, exploring the loss of mother, loss of motherhood, and human-caused environmental toxicity and genocide’s effects on climate change and our fertility. This chamber ensemble, including Shyu as composer/librettist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist plus women and nonbinary vocalist-instrumentalists who double as choir, will use choreographed movements to express how overcoming barrenness in both land and bodies are intertwined. The opera is directed by Nana Dakin and features Shyu (voice, composition, libretto, Taiwanese moon lute, Korean gayageum, piano), Layale Chaker (violin), Alexandria DeWalt (flute), Kayla Williams (viola), Elizabeth Kate (cello), and Lesley Mok (drums).