Machine Dazzle’s Debut Collaboration
with Opera Lafayette
Photos above are of past Machine Dazzle works, not the commissions for Opera Lafayette.
Photo credit: Gregory Kramer, Geoff Winningham, Little Fang
Opera Lafayette is thrilled to announce Machine Dazzle’s debut collaboration as Costume Designer for our production of the historic premiere of Rameau’s Io this May in Washington, DC and New York City.
Machine Dazzle will create more than a dozen new costumes for Opera Lafayette’s production of the never-before-seen Rameau comedic opéra-ballet, Io. In roles ranging from gods to mortals, singers and dancers alike will don Dazzle’s works of art.
Hailed as a “theatrical genius” (The New Yorker), and a “renowned, multifaceted artist” (Vogue), Machine Dazzle joins us at an incredible moment in his career. Dazzle’s first solo exhibition, Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle, opened at the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC in September 2022 and is up through mid February 2023. In December, in collaboration with the Catalyst Quartet, Machine is designing and performing in Bassline Fabulous, a modern take on Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” at The Metropolitan Museum. He describes himself as a “radical queer, emotionally driven, instinct-based concept artist and thinker.”
Machine was a co-recipient the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Visual Design, the winner of a 2017 Henry Hewes Design Award, and is a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. In 2019 Machine was commissioned by Guggenheim Works and Process and The Rockefeller Brothers to create Treasure, a rock and roll cabaret of original songs including a fashion show inspired by the content. He has collaborated with Diane Von Furstenberg, Cara Delevingne, Godfrey Reggio, Justin Vivian Bond, Taylor Mac, Basil Twist, Julie Atlas Muz, Jennifer Miller, The Dazzle Dancers, Big Art Group, Mike Albo, Stanley Love, Soomi Kim, Opera Philadelphia, Pig Iron Theatre, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Spiegelworld, The Curran Theatre, and now Opera Lafayette.
“Nothing quite prepared me for the sheer joy of seeing Machine’s work in person; it’s imaginative, extravagant, and thoroughly American in the way he uses ordinary objects to extraordinary effect.”
- Ryan Brown, Opera Lafayette Artistic Director
Read Reviews and Profiles About Machine Dazzle:
Machine Dazzle Embodies a New Kind of Surrealism - New Yorker Magazine
Machine Dazzle’s Queer Maximalism Invents a Universe of Its Own - Vogue Magazine
Photos above are of past Machine Dazzle works, not the commissions for Opera Lafayette.
Photo credit: Gregory Kramer, Geoff Winningham, Little Fang