Melisa Tien
Theater
Playwright, Professor of experimental theatrical writing, Sarah Lawrence College – United States – Bogliasco and Baryshnikov Arts Center Joint Fellowship
Melisa Tien will be working on an opera about Chinese American architect I.M. Pei and the challenges he faced in constructing the glass-and-steel pyramid that was added to the Musée du Louvre during its renovation in the 1980s. The opera relates Pei’s struggles to realize his proposed design, his eventual transformation of the Louvre and its identity, and perhaps most significantly, how tradition and nationalism can sometimes become obstacles to the forward trajectory of a culture and a people.