Five Fathoms Deep My Father Lies — beyond the well-known verse passage in The Tempest by Shakespeare — was a multi-site underwater opera staged across the globe in water tanks, swimming pools, ocean grottos and (initially) in private bathrooms.
The project foreshadowed You Who Will Emerge from the Flood… (2009-2017) in that Juliana Snapper was already experimenting with singing underwater.
Five Fathoms Deep My Father Lies was taking shape around the material tension between water and air to explore the old lure of sirens and shipwrecks alongside the urgent ecological specters of drought and drowned cities.
Juliana Snapper merged extended techniques with Baroque naturalist tropes and cautionary Wagnerian arias (Erda, Kundry).
Each performance closed with a double chorus of local voices lured from the audience to the water; a chorus of lover suicides enacting evolution in rapturous reverse.
Among others (in Palm Springs, San Francisco, Los Angeles, CA, Woodridge, NY, Montréal, QC…), two events are to be noted, which took place at:
The event consisted of a total one hour submersion of Juliana Snapper in a glass tank filled with water, singing into an underwater microphone.
It was part of Ridykeulous: The Odds Are Against Us, in conjunction with exhibition WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution (Feb. 14 - May 12, 2008).
“ She managed to fuse intense discipline, self-inflicted trauma and the desire to communicate through the even the most compromised means, evoking a palpable power and rawness. ”
Jennifer Coates
art 21 magazine, Apr. 9, 2008
▢ Read full review of this event:
“Juliana Snapper’s Vocal Hysteria”
AKSIOMA, Institute for Contemporary Art: Ljubljana, Slovenia, June, 20, 2008
(Ljubljana Faculty of Sports' swimming pool.)
The event was conceived and performed by Juliana Snapper in collaboration with:
— Pieter Snapper (live electronic music);
— Suzette Matheson (costumes);
— Paula Cronan (video).
The initiative was supported by many volunteers and some institutions: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, the City of Ljubljana, the Faculty of Sport of the University of Ljubljana, the Club Norik-sub, the ŠKUC/Club Tiffany.
PET SEŽNJEV GLOBOKO MOJ OČE LEŽI, Polnočna podvodna opera. Intervju pred dogodkom.
(FIVE FATHOMS DEEP MY FATHER LIES, Midnight underwater opera. Pre-event interview).