Lazer Eyes

Lazer Eyes is an original electronic dance opera written by Van Broh and produced by Amanda + James. Weaving together the old and the new, Lazer Eyes is both a classic tale of an outsider who becomes a hero through extraordinary circumstances, and a tongue-in-cheek satire of the digital era. Lazer Eyes premiered at National Sawdust in February 2019.

The Show

Set in a not too distant future, a young Appalachian miner strikes a meteor, whose sparks turn him into the hero we now know as Lazer Eyes. The plot tells the story of his journey towards his destiny: the discovery of his one true love, Leila, champion of the citizens of Cityopolis, and his fight and ultimate victory over the evil Reflektor, the anthropomorphized super-human smart device.

Lazereyes was born of a desire to test the limits of electronic dance music, exploring whether the musical and technical devices used in EDM can sustain an evening-length show. Juxtaposing an array of the often aggressively delineated subgenres of EDM, we demonstrate the artistic viability of the style when taken as a diverse whole.

The narrative grew out of a desire to explore EDM and its place in our culture as one of the touchstones of the digital era. Central to our plot are hallmarks of the EDM experience, lasers and smart-phones, and rounding it out is a healthy sense of millennial anti-humor, creating a show both ironically referential and sincerely entertaining.