Gulliver’s Dream

Before embarking on various performances across Europe, the mechanized opera Gulliver’s Dream makes a stop at the Epica Foundation. It is an adaptation of the literary work Los Viajes de Gulliver, by Jonathan Swift, devised and carried out by the engineer and designer Roland Olbeter.

Épica was transformed into a laboratory space hosting the general rehearsal and first public presentation of a fully mechanized opera, based on the work of Jonathan Swift and created by Roland Olbeter, where the public was able to see in-situ the capabilities and new opportunities offered by the connection between industrial mechanics and Art.
The project focuses its interest, on the one hand, on the analysis of the potential of the new industry 4.0 technologies as enabling tools in the field of creative industries, and on the other hand, the opening of these technologies and their potential to civil society. 

In Gulliver’s Dream, the audience follows the interplanetary travels of Gulliver, a scientist bent on discovering the limits of the universe. Using his space kayak, he visits planets inhabited by nanobots, talks to the wisest beings in the galaxy, and meets the crows that drive the universe. It is an opera conducted with robotic puppets, located in a mobile theater, where each sound and movement is programmed. In this way, the tours of the show are practical to carry out both by the members of his team and by the public, who are able to enjoy a small-format opera in a much more accessible way than would be usual.
The philosophy behind Gulliver’s Dream has a lot to do with that of the Epic Foundation: breaking the limits of the scene through the search for new languages and the fusion between disciplines.