OCTOPUS OPERA is the life long work of ARTONE, developing a dialogue of sound and movement, investigating the relationship of octopus mothers and human families.
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OCTOPUS OPERA 1
In June 2026, ARTONE performed OCTOPUS OPERA 1 as part of the 2nd annual Dances in Progress, produced by Modern Connections and Jenny Oliver.
Award: ARTONE received the Panelist Award for his work, and a monetary award to support the continuation of this work.
He is honored and humbled to receive the award.
Story: A funeral, an embryo hatching, taking its first steps into a wide world alone. The overcoat represents the mother and shell of the egg. The hatchling moves to stretch, crawl, and using each arm’s unique brain to assess its surrounding environment before growing into the next phase of life.
Movement: Inspired by footage of octopi, and ARTONE’s training in Tae-Kwon-Do as a teenager. ARTONE studied the undulating form, translating these movements into human limbs with bones. While exercising these movements, he incorporated balancing techniques to test the capabilities of his own body. Octopi prefer to crawl rather than swim, and his movements consistently kept one limb planted on the ground for stability, allowing other limbs to explore freely. The movement for “swimming” was introduced by rapid running across the stage, inferring an escape from danger. ARTONE explored crawling on the floor to explore different areas of the space, like an octopus crawling on the sea floor.
Music: The soundscape was produced by designer Bryn Scharenberg, who developed a human sized, pipe theremin which inspired this project back in 2023. Scharenburg created a sound story which aided profoundly in the gestures of this piece. The idea of using theremin, is that a human limb creates such vast sound with the subtlest of virbrational changes, like an octopus limb in the ocean.
Photos: domenik lee, dandy lion media
Video: provided by Modern Connections
