INTERVIEW: Journey of ‘Avalona’ continues at St. Paul & St. Andrew
Photo: Dina Fanai wrote and composed Avalona, and she also stars as the Weaver of Time. Photo courtesy of Xelaarom Media / Provided by JT PR with permission.
Dina Fanai, who has previously worked with everyone from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Foreigner, has been on a multi-year journey to bring her vision of Avalona to the stage, and this month, she’s seeing her dream realized at St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The 90-minute production is billed as a combination of song, sacred storytelling, dance and 3D digital projections.
The story embedded in the immersive show surrounds the title character, who is on a journey from darkness to light. She is trying to wrestle her inner demons and find the will to live, according to press notes. Helping her are the Shaman and Weaver of Time, but the Shadow is holding her back. For Fanai, who portrays the Weaver of Time, the show is intentionally universal in nature. Too many specifics would rob the audience of the chance to connect to the narrative, so Fanai kept the characters and storyline as open as possible.
“I basically have been working on the music of this probably for over 18 years, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell the story starting from then,” Fanai said in a recent phone interview. “And then it was just building and building and building. I was a ballet dancer before I was in music, from the time I was 2 years old to 19. … I was seriously pro and high, high level and got very, very sick and came very close to losing my life. This is stuff I don’t really talk about, but I’m open to talking about it. But I don’t wear it on my virtual T-shirt, so this [show] is all based on a true story.”
When Fanai was at this low point in her life, a voice came to her and gave her a choice, she said. If she wanted to live, she was given a list of actions she needed to accomplish, and this prompted her to begin a “journey of self-discovery.” Avalona, which is directed by Dodd Loomis, grew out of this experience.
“I ended up working with a shaman, who I am still in contact with,” she said. “This was kind of my journey of healing. … All the songs that I wrote were based on the actual journey, so it’s almost the opposite of a jukebox musical where you take songs and you write a story around it. This was all the songs came out of the actual story, and for many years, I just wanted and I knew and it was my mission in life to tell the story.”
Fanai added: “These are universal subjects that we all face, and I was trying to figure out a way to tell it in a way that people could go on a similar journey of healing — if I could tell it in a way where they were brought into it, where it wasn’t invasive, but they were inspired to look at places in their life that they were not living fully.”
Joining Fanai on this journey is a talented group of actors, including Jenna Rubaii as Avalona, Maya Days as the Shaman, Constantine Maroulis as the Shadow and Madeline Serrano as the Child. This full production took many years to pull off, mostly because Fanai was still experiencing this change in her life, so the “story behind the story” was still percolating.
“I think that’s why it took so long to figure out how to tell the story because for years I had been working on the story behind the story,” she said. “How do I tell this story that has such an important message to share? It was indeed for myself as a healing journey and as an artist for me to tell the story, but also [I] really wanted to inspire people to go on their own journey. … I wanted to meet people wherever they are and just inspire them from whatever place they are in their journey. Everyone is on a different path, and it’s all beautiful.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Avalona, written and composed by Dina Fanai, continues through Saturday, March 29, at St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
