MEDIATHEK

Opera for 7 performers, acoustic and electronic instruments, video

// Extended (Circus) version involves men choir, female drummer and a marching band

// Candy Shop is a famous hip hop hit by American rapper 50 cent. Candy Shop is also a name under which artist Lina Lapelyte created a series of performances. Candy shop was a dance project, a film work, a gallery installation, chamber music piece, intervention, provocation, audition and finally it culminated into an opera work involving 7 female performers, drummer, men choir and a marching band. Candy Shop recontextualises West Coast hip hop lyrics, revealing catchy surfaces, gender hierarchies and power dynamics. Candy Shop was coproduced by Counterflows festival in Glasgow and Borealis festival in Bergen and turned into a full length opera performance inviting live contributions by artists Angharad Davies, Anat Ben David, Sharon Gal, Nouria Bah, Heidi Heidelberg and Rebecca La Horrox along Lina Lapelyte herself. Candy Shop has been performed at the venues like swimming pool, roof terrace and concert halls. The piece adopts itself to the different contexts and allows for individual interpretations. Soothing voices, nonlinear stories and well known texts create a strange tension, which can be ignored or taken on. Candy Shop is a celebration reworking the games of power that are embedded in the rap songs, into lullabies, narrating a story about beauty, gender and the mundane.

Candy Shop has been performed at the following venues and festivals:
Counterflows, CCA Glasgow - April 2013;

Arts Foundation Award, New Experimentalists, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London - January 2014;

Borealis festival, Bergen - March 2015;

Block Universe, London – June, 2015 Picnic Sessions, CA2M - Madrid, July 2015