Research and Development for A sci-fi-choral folk opera
working title: Under the Sand
Composer, songwriter and artist: Genevieve Dawson
This page gives an introduction to a sci-fi-folk-choral-opera, working title - Under the Sand. Two women play Isobel and Freya. The rest of the chorus play the other characters including the friends/coven of Isobel Gowdie in 1660, an activist-cell in present day Scotland. In Act 3, we meet our third woman - Arka - surviving on the same land in the year 4200.
Context
Three women become connected across land and time in their search for justice.
In the 17th century, thousands of women in Scotland were murdered by the state under the charge of ‘witchcraft’. Many of them were healers, midwives, and had deep connections to the land. In the area of Culbin, a small community on the North-East coast of Scotland, the young laird Kinnaird was zealous in his rounding up of such women. It was a time of violence, famine and rebellion.
Isobel Gowdie worked the land around Culbin - and warned of the dangers of over-picking the marram grass along the coast, which protected the village from the shifting sands. When Isobel was accused of witchcraft in 1662, she gave detailed and vivid confessions in public trials to her magical powers, including her ‘coven’ of 13 women.
30 years after her trial, Culbin was destroyed in a storm and covered in sand dunes. The sand was so extensive the land was called ‘The Sahara of Scotland’. Folklore blamed Isobel for cursing this land as revenge.
In the 2020s, the UK has introduced new protest laws and charges of ‘conspiracy’ punishable by up to ten years in prison. These laws have largely been used to arrest and imprison those highlighting the climate emergency. We are currently on track to hit 3 degrees warming by the end of the century. The youngest activist currently serving a four year sentence for blocking a highway is 22.
In present day Scotland, Freya is a young climate activist. Communities are struggling to heat their homes, pay for food, and oil companies are finding loopholes in new climate laws to open up new oil fields. Holding a meeting in her house, Freya is arrested on conspiracy charges and held at Peterhead, not far from the sands of Culbin. In the cells, she hears a voice, much like her own - willing her to keep fighting.
Our third protagonist, Arka, lives in a time of survival and renewal, far in the future. On this same land, she finds an old ruin that she must decipher. Failure will result in the deaths of all who are left. Will Freya and Isobel find her in time, to warn her what’s to come?
This story is inspired by the folk tales of Scotland, by queer science fiction, ‘The Order of Time’ by physicist Carlo Rovelli , the Greek tale of Cassandra - and the existence of Nuclear Semiotics; communication attempts intended to deter human intrusion at nuclear waste repositories in the far future.
About Genevieve Dawson
Genevieve Dawson is an artist and activist from the borders of Scotland, now based in South-East London. Genevieve grew up singing Scottish folk songs and began writing her own songs at 14. She studied music and composition with Deborah Pritchard at the University of Oxford, and researched group vocal improvisation and memory at Goldsmiths with Lisa Busby in her Masters in creative practice.
She writes songs about our interconnectedness, and how to stay loving in a violent world. Her songwriting and production combines rich electro-acoustic textures with raw a cappella vocal harmonies, harmonic complexity with lyrical directness, and a stylistic-blending of contemporary and ancient approaches.
In 2024 she wrote the music for A Child of Science, at the Bristol Old Vic, directed by Matthew Dunster. Her compositional practice often involves participatory methods, working with ‘non-musicians’ through singing and improvisation. Samples of that score can be heard here. In early 2026, she wrote the music for In Case of Emergency, directed by Ian Rickson and written by April de Angelis, at the Southbank Centre.
Genevieve works with choirs in her day-to-day work, in hospitals, schools, community centres and care homes.
She became active in organising for justice through the student fees protests of 2011. In 2013 she set up the masculinities project Beyond Equality, and in 2021 took 100 young climate activists to COP in Glasgow.
Her albums and songwriting work can be heard here.
To get in touch with Genevieve please email hello@genevievedawson.com
About Phoebe Eclair -Powell - Dramaturgist and Playwright
Phoebe Eclair-Powell is a writer from South East London.
Her plays include: Shed: Exploded View (Royal Exchange, Manchester, 2024); Dorian, adapted with Owen Horsley from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (Reading Rep Theatre, 2021); Harm (Bush Theatre, 2021); Epic Love and Pop Songs (Pleasance, Edinburgh, 2016); Fury (Soho Theatre, 2016); WINK (Theatre503, 2015); One Under (Pleasance Below); Mrs Spine (OUTLINES at the Old Red Lion); Bangin' Wolves (Courting Drama at the Bush Upstairs, published by Playdead Press, later with Poleroid Theatre for Wilderness Festival); two rapid write response pieces, Coal Eaters and Glass Hands (Theatre503); The Box (Theatre Delicatessen SPACED festival and Latitude Festival); Elephant and My Castle (SALT Theatre at Southwark Playhouse); CARE (Miniaturists at the Arcola).
She was the overall winner of the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, for her play Shed: Exploded View. Fury was a finalist for the 2015 Verity Bargate Award, and the winner of the Soho Theatre Young Writers' Award.
About Hannah-Hauer-King - Director
Hannah is a director and dramaturg, with a focus on new writing and work centered around the female and/or queer experience. She is Artistic Director of theater company Damsel Productions, who recently co-produced the sell-out show The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs at Soho Theatre. As Director: The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs, Fabric, Fury, Soho Theatre; The Funeral Director, Southwark Playhouse/ETT UK Tour; The Amber Trap, Theatre 503; Grotty, Bunker Theatre, Dry Land, Jermyn Street Theatre. Associate/Assistant directing credits include: Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare’s Globe; Daytona, Park Theatre, Theatre Royal Haymarket; Radiant Vermin, Soho Theatre.