”Wolf-in-Skins” is an evening-length “dance-opera” choreographed and directed by Christopher Williams and composed by Gregory Spears. Inspired by ancient themes of the “mythic hero’s journey” found in medieval Welsh literature, the work’s libretto, written by Williams, bears witness to the initiation rites of a central hero character grappling with identity via bouts with supernatural agency, otherworldly passage, and transformation. Driven by choreographed operatic sequences supported by supertitles, the work combines live music, dance, puppetry, and visual design to re-imagine lost mythology as a staged ritual. Singers performing in a quasi-archaic English represent the libretto’s human characters, whereas dancers embody its supernatural characters. A choir of shadow figures singing in Welsh represents the voices of the supernatural characters. The complete work, slated to premiere as a co-production with New York Live Arts in 2014, strives to dovetail the traditional live performance genres of opera, dance, theater, and puppetry into a visual, sonorous, and spatial "polyphony" that forges new territory as its own performance hybrid carrying forward the tradition of Wagnerian “Gesamtkunstwerk” and Diaghilev’s “Ballets Russes.”