In 2017, the stirring chords of Toshi Reagon’s opera adaptation of Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” filled the halls of ArtsEmerson’s Paramount Center.
Three years later, Reagon has returned to build her yearlong artist residency with ArtsEmerson around the tenets of Butler’s novel.
Reagon’s vision for the residency, titled “Parable Path Boston,” included in-person community events, conversations and performances for creative “groupthinks” on Parable’s themes.
The pandemic may have disrupted the residency’s logistical workflow, but it has also served to magnify the issues at play in Butler’s novel and Reagon’s corresponding opera.
Many of the issues in the novel, including resource scarcity, poverty, racism and societal violence, are at play at this very moment.
