The world premiere of “Test Pilot” is September 12 and 13 at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium.

For the latest in their Women of Substance series, St. Kate’s O’Shaughnessy Auditorium is presenting a world premiere dance opera, “Test Pilot,” which offers a lens onto the Wright Brothers’ historic experiments with flight, as seen through the eyes of their much less well-known sister, Katharine. A collaborative project by two McKnight Artist Fellows, composer Jocelyn Hagen and choreographer Penelope Freeh, this chamber work weaves a narrative of aviation, ambition and invention in movement, live strings and song, against a multimedia backdrop of video projections and atmospheric soundscapes.

The text of the libretto is drawn from archival texts, poetry and public records, as well as family letters exchanged between the Wright siblings during the course of the brothers’ seminal research and 1903 test flights in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Both movement and score are rooted in the lexicon of aviation – using a pilot’s alphabet (i.e. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) and the complex assortment of hand signals, ritualized gestures and physical protocols peculiar to runway workers, pilots and flight attendants.

Soprano Carrie Henneman Shaw sings the part of Katharine Wright. “The Airplane” is represented by two dancers, Stephanie Fellner and Penelope Freeh. Wilbur and Orville Wright will be enacted by way of movement alone, by James Sewell Ballet dancers Cory Goei and Nic Lincoln. The oblique narrative of the dance opera is interwoven with projections and sound compilations by video artist Justin Schell, and Hagen’s original compositions performed live by a string quartet, Shaw and a chorus of five male vocalists.

According to the artists’ notes on the “Test Pilot” website:

“Though specific roles are represented, the players will also be used to enact more imagistic and impressionistic scenes. Video projections, ‘found sound’ (i.e. propellers, wind tunnel noise, songs of the day, etc.) and looping technology will be incorporated as well as textural elements including but not limited to: air quality, weather patterns, the repetitive trial and error process of invention and humanizing the mechanized (how can people represent a contraption?).”

This new dance opera is the result of two years of research and collaborative work. It’s the second such creative partnership for Freeh and Hagen, who also joined forces for a similarly interdisciplinary work in sound, movement and video – “Slippery Fish” – which debuted in 2012.

“Test Pilot,” with choreography by Penelope Freeh and music by Jocelyn Hagen, is part of the O’Shaughnessy’s Women of Substance series. The dance opera will have its world premiere this weekend, on stage September 12 and 13 in the College of St. Catherine’s O’Shaughnessy Auditorium, 2004 Randolph Ave., St. Paul. For ticket information and more on the show, visit the performance listing online.