Luminous Thread

Luminous Thread was created to

Co-Founder Mary Lin has worked in opera companies and with fire dancing circus performers. Mary wondered what would it be like if her circus friends and her opera friends got together to do a show. Luminous Thread seeks to establish a new form of opera where physical performance traditions like dance, acrobatics, bouffoniering, and comedy achieve equal footing with music performance and world-class singing traditions.

Co-Founder Ben Sargent first tried to write and stage a large-scale performance when he was 10 years old. At 15, he traveled from Philadelphia to Maine performing as a puppeteer, juggler, and stilt-walker, which included running three-person 20-foot tall puppets in outdoor pageants. He went on to study classical voice and composition with the intent of setting his plays to music. Luminous Thread combines his experience in writing and performing in a range of shows from outdoor spectacle to chamber music in intimate indoor spaces.