Floris Schönfeld

[b]Floris Schönfeld[/b] (b. 8 March 1982, Houston, Texas) is a Dutch-American visual artist, director, filmmaker, and researcher based in Amsterdam. He studied in the Netherlands — at the [l=Gerrit Rietveld Academie] (2002–2006), where Floris earned his Bachelor's in "Time-based Arts," and [l=Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag] (2008 –2010), graduating with a Master's degree in "Art Science." After returning to the United States, Schönfeld enrolled at the [url=https://discogs.com/label/347167]California College of the Arts[/url] (2011–2013), attaining his second Master's in "Studio Practice." He is also the [url=https://discogs.com/label/614931]Headlands Center for the Arts[/url] graduate fellow and has done several artistic residencies, including [l=Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten te Amsterdam]. Schönfeld's work appeared at prominent film festivals, group exhibitions, and solo shows, including the [url=https://discogs.com/artist/13128507]Rotterdam International Film Festival[/url], [url=https://discogs.com/label/293402]Rencontres International[/url], the [l=Haus der Kulturen der Welt] in Berlin, the [a=Contemporary Art Center Of Vilnius], the [l=Oakland Museum], and the [l=Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco]. Schönfeld is renowned as the artistic/stage director and "head researcher" of [b][i]ʼuʼ[/i][/b] — the "first authentic Klingon opera on Earth," set in a fictional language spoken by the eponymous alien species in [i]Star Trek[/i]. The Klingon was invented by linguist and "conlanger" (constructed language creator) [a=Marc Okrand] in the early 1980s. (Even though the language was mentioned and briefly described in the original TV series, ad-libbed by [a=Mark Lenard] and [a=James Doohan] in the inaugural 1979 feature-length film, [i][m=90759][/i], it wasn't until [a=Nicholas Meyer]'s [i][url=https://discogs.com/master/90708]Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan[/url][/i] (1982) that [l=Paramount Pictures] commissioned a "bona fide" linguist to develop a coherent, detailed fictional language — [i]Vulcan[/i], and subsequently [i]Klingon[/i].) Okrand participated in the project as the translator and co-author of the libretto. Floris began developing the Klingon opera in 2008, forming a "Klingon Terran Research Ensemble" (KTRE) that won a residency at [l=The Watermill Center] in New York (and later conducted a series of workshops in Europe). Schönfeld thoroughly analyzed every mention of the "Klingon battle opera" scattered throughout the [i]Star Trek[/i] series. (In the sci-fi franchise lore, Klingons were avid opera aficionados, while their atonal and aggressive music was a subject of persistent, ongoing jokes as barely tolerable by humans and most other alien species.) Schönfeld authored a fictional "ancient treatise," [i]paqʼjachchuʼ[/i] ("Book of the Perfect Scream"), which formed a foundation for the microtonal Klingon music theory. Floris and his KTRE extensively collaborated with Dutch experimental musician [a=Xavier Van Wersch], who wrote an even more robust and complex music system (outlined in his unpublished paper, [i]A comprehensive introduction to Klingon music theory[/i]) and designed a set of "indigenous" Klingon musical instruments used in subsequent performances, and composer [a=Eef van Breen], who wrote the score and served as the music director. In April 2010, five months ahead of the scheduled premiere, Marc Okrand had recorded and broadcast a message in Klingon from the CAMRAS radio telescope in the northeastern Netherlands to hypothetical coordinates of [i]QoʼnoS[/i], the Klingon home planet in the Arcturus solar system, inviting Klingons to attend the opera on Earth. The [b][i]ʼuʼ[/i][/b] debuted at the [l=Zeebelt] theater in The Hague with a four-performance run in September 2010, starring [a=Henri Van Zanten] as the "Master of the Scream" (narrator) and contralto [a=Taru Huotari] in one of the leading roles. Following the initial success, the Klingon opera was again staged in November 2010 at Amsterdam's [l=Frascati Theater], and subsequently repeated in 2011–2013 at several Star Trek conventions and European experimental opera festivals.