Consider this a spoiler if you’re planning to see the Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca production “Antigona,” a world premiere presented as part of the , October 23 to 25: Several characters die by the end of the night. The production is based on a Greek tragedy, after all.

“Antigona” is a retelling — through flamenco music and dance — of the play “Antigone” by Sophocles. It is the story of Oedipus’s daughter, who buries her brother in defiance of a royal decree, choosing to follow the unwritten laws of the gods rather than the laws of mere mortals. She pays the ultimate price, as do several of those closest to her. The play’s emotional and political intensity attracted artistic director Martín Santangelo, who saw connections with the political turmoil in his native Spain.

“I’m very interested in telling stories with flamenco,” says Santangelo. “It is a rough, direct, visceral art form. I think, well used, it can explain Antigone.” For this production, Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca collaborated with acclaimed theater director , who has considerable experience with modern adaptations of Greek tragedies. His importance to the production is profound, says Santangelo. “He makes connections that you miss, you don’t see, and those connections can be simple or complex, but they are the bombs, they are exploding revelations — human revelations.”

Breuer and members of Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca are spending two weeks on the 91̽��campus prior to the 91̽��World Series performances through a unique residency. With “Antigona” premiering at Meany Hall, the company is still immersed in developing the work; the World Series is providing facilities and staff to support the creative process.

“It’s the realization of a goal that the 91̽��World Series could move from being merely a presenter of the performing arts to becoming an active supporter of the creative process of artists, a place where artists can develop new work,” says Michelle Witt, artistic director of the series and executive director of Meany Hall.

During the residency the artists are also reaching out to the community through a series of special events developed by the World Series. These include a guitar performance in Odegaard Library, flamenco classes for Dance Program students, discussion sessions with Lee Breuer and with the show’s lighting designer for School of Drama students, pre-performance lectures by a 91̽��professor of classics, post-performance discussions and a rehearsal/lecture open to the general public.

“When you have a work that has such strong connections to literature, theater, music and dance, the possibilities for working with departments are readily apparent,” says Witt. “ 91̽��World Series is reaching out to students, but also involving faculty and leveraging their expertise.”

That has meant inviting , 91̽��professor of classics, to participate. Blondell’s intimate knowledge of “Antigone” includes writing a translation of the Greek tragedy with commentary. “We definitely wanted a classicist to speak about the story of ‘Antigone’ — the importance of the story and its relevance today, to give a bit of context to our audiences,” says Witt. “She’s going to be giving the pre-performance lectures every night.”

Blondell is thrilled to be involved. “I’m always interested in intersections between Greek myth and other cultures, and ways in which contemporary artists use ancient culture for their own purposes,” she says. “I am also very excited to be connected with a Lee Breuer project. I am a longtime fan of his ‘Gospel at Colonus,’ which is perhaps the best ‘translation’ of an ancient tragedy into a modern cultural idiom that I have seen.”

In her (scheduled for 6:45 to 7:30 on performance nights), Blondell will explain the gender dynamics that drive Sophocles’ tragedy, while emphasizing ways in which the play’s meaning can change when it is viewed through a contemporary lens. “Like many other disturbing figures from Greek tragedy, Antigone offers us ways of thinking about our own problems — problems that are peculiar to the time and place in which we live,” says Blondell.

Scott Magelssen has had more lives than an accident-prone cat. He’s been a waiter in a logging camp. An anthrax victim. A Mexican migrant trying to cross into the U.S. A slave seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad. An observer during an attack on an Iraqi village.

It’s all in a day’s work for , a 91̽��associate professor of , who has participated in a variety of interactive simulations for his upcoming book, to be published in June by University of Michigan Press. The book explores the impact of simulations and the potential of such immersive environments to promote social change.

Magelssen’s interest in simulations dates back to his teenage years in Wisconsin, where he worked as a lumberjack waiter at Historyland, a tourist venue that celebrated the glory days of Wisconsin logging. Later on, he started collecting examples of simulations.

“I wound up having so many examples that I saw the potential for a book about the many ways that educators and industry and businesses and tourist attractions use simulations,” he said. “They employ similar strategies for very different purposes.”

To research the book, Magelssen participated in or observed more than a dozen simulations. There were simulations of aging for empathy training of health care workers; a large-scale simulation of an anthrax attack to prepare for disaster response; and the simulated aftermath of a drunk-driving crash to discourage teenage drinking. A simulation designed to prepare soldiers for the Middle East recreates an entire Iraqi province in the California desert, with hundreds of Iraqi Americans posing as Iraqi civic leaders, police, schoolteachers, and other citizens.

The most intense simulation Magelssen has personally experienced was in Mexico, three hours north of Mexico City. Actors led participants through a grueling six-hour simulation of an illegal border crossing from Mexico into the U.S. The event takes place at night, with participants running from (simulated) U.S. Border Patrol police, down steep hills into the muck of the riverbeds, losing shoes and dodging prickly cacti. It is designed for Mexican tourists, both to generate revenue for the town that hosts it and to discourage Mexicans from attempting to cross the border.

Magelssen is quick to acknowledge that simulations, particularly those that place privileged visitors in the role of society’s downtrodden, tread sensitive territory. “On the one hand, it’s arrogant to assume that we can step into the shoes of someone who has suffered in the past. On the other, what kind of people are we if we only stick to bodily experiencing our own localized history, our own ethnic and cultural identity?”

He hopes that his book helps people talk about the difficult issues that arise from when one has “that bodily difference that complicates and adds nuance to one’s experience of history.”

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See the and more photos in the March issue of Perspectives, the College of Arts & Sciences’ newsletter.

Songs are powerful weapons.

When the Soviet Union attacked the newly independent Baltic nations in 1991, Baltic citizens responded by gathering en masse and singing in nonviolent protest. The Soviets eventually backed down.

“Singing raises self-esteem and gives people a sense of community. It can calm violence in a really threatening situation,” said , an associate professor of who leads the 91̽��Baltic Studies Program. “In the Baltics, it was a way that each person in those demonstrations got their courage.”

In his new book “,” Šmidchens explores what is often dubbed “the Singing Revolution,” a passive resistance movement that took hold in the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

91̽�� Press published “The Power of Song” in January.

Singing as a form of resistance has a long history in the Baltics, dating back to nineteenth century choirs that met and performed in defiance of the Tsar. In an 1873 essay, Latvian poet Auseklis (Mikus Krogzemis) wrote of “a shield of songs which repels the spear.”

In the mid-twentieth century, Baltic countries under Soviet rule were denied freedom of speech, but choirs still found ways to rebel through song. Choir festivals, held every five years, would feature songs of loyalty to the Soviet Union, but after the official program the choir would often perform a familiar song—a folk song, for example—that despite neutral content would become a song of resistance, with the enormous audience singing along.

“Just singing non-Soviet songs—they weren’t anti-Soviet—was seen as an act of resistance,” said Šmidchens. “The Soviets quickly recognized such songs as national anthems and would ban them. The people who organized the festivals were sometimes sent to Siberia. So the Singing Revolution, the model for how to organize a resistance, was already there at these festivals.”

Mikhail Gorbachev eased some restrictions on freedom of speech in the Baltics in the late 1980s, including letting choirs choose their songs. Citizens took these freedoms far beyond what Soviet leaders had intended. They began singing songs that were explicitly about independence. At a 1988 Lithuanian choir festival, singers unfurled a pre-Soviet Lithuanian flag on stage and blocked Soviet officials who tried to remove the activists from the stage.

Patriotic fervor quickly grew. Within two years, the Baltic nations held government elections and negotiated independence from the Soviet Union.

The transition was relatively smooth—for a while. Then, in 1991, Soviet anti-independence forces decided to crack down. But the public remained disciplined in its nonviolent response, believing they could win through song.

It worked.

Gorbachev, facing the prospect of killing thousands of unarmed citizens, chose to let the Baltic countries go.

In his book, Šmidchens translates and explores the meaning of 112 songs connected to the Singing Revolution, ranging from hymns to folk songs to rock anthems. He explains the context of each song—both the events at which it was sung and the speeches that surrounded it—and delves into political science theory and music therapy to better understand how songs became powerful tools of protest.

“What they had to build on was something very unique—this 150-year-old choir movement that recognized singing and songs as weapons, as something that could be adapted to a nonviolent movement. And, miraculously, it worked,” Šmidchens said.

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See the full and more photos in Perspectives, the College of Arts & Sciences’ newsletter.