A person plays the guitar. A colorful illustration is projected on them and the guitar.

Family Series

BUGS

Kaki King

Performances

Nov 30

Performance Run Time: Approximately 1 hour.
Accessibility Services: This performance will have ASL interpretation and sensory-friendly services available.
Welcome Guide: Click here to view the BUGS Welcome Guide. Paper copies will be available Lobby Level 1 at our Access Resource Counter.

Audience members — both children and anyone who is a child at heart — are invited.

Guitarist and composer Kaki King, named as one of Rolling Stone’s “250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” in 2023, brings a fun-filled story of bugs, beetles, critters, and all things sugar to the Harris Theater with BUGS. This new work has been created specifically for young audiences to bring together music, design, and technology in a live performance that is accessible for children of all ages.

BUGS is designed to tickle the senses: audiences will experience magically synced videos and imagery of insects, spiders, and other invertebrates, plus melting ice cream, bundles of candy, exploding Legos, bouncing toys, and much more. Throughout this journey, the audience will meet friendly characters and hear emotionally rich music, audio samples, and field recordings from nature that are connected to King’s live guitar performance in real time.

Audience members — both children and anyone who is a child at heart! — are invited to shout out to their favorite bug, dance like the insect characters, and interact with King throughout the performance. BUGS allows audiences to experience moments of magic that can become jumping-off points for youngsters to think about nature, ecology, and our animal kingdom.

“In King’s hands, the guitar becomes a canvas for a revolutionary reassertion of the instrument’s role in music and art.” (Guitar Player)

Kaki King
Kaki King is an iconoclastic guitarist, composer, artist, and teaching performer. For over 20 years, King has created a body of music celebrated for its enduring impact in performance, recorded albums, and cinema. She has expanded the known possibilities for the role of guitarist — synthesizing musical compositions with visual art, projection mapping, sound design, and theatrical production. Deconstructing and reconstructing norms of guitar playing and composing form the basis of King’s creative practice. Her sole demand for any audience is that they feel their way through her work.

GLITCH
Orsolya Szantho and Attilio Rigotti are multidisciplinary artists who co-founded the multimedia theater company GLITCH, creating work that seamlessly combines digital and physical mediums with new forms of storytelling. Rigotti is a Chilean performer, director, technology artist, video game designer, and teacher, and a former Associate Artist with the experimental company Theater Mitu. Szantho is a multimedia designer and filmmaker, working across live performance, cinema, and interactive design. GLITCH has been collaborating with Kaki King on projection and interactive design for years, partnering with King for BUGS.