Project: Guacamayo's Old Song and Dance, a ninety-minute, one-act opera commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company and based on a story from the ancient Maya text Popui Vuh. The story of the opera tells of the defeat of a false god and his two sons by two young brothers sent on a mission by the true Creators. The story takes place before the creation of the sun and moon, and humankind, but after the creation of plants and animals. The false god, a scarlet macaw, claims to be the source of all light, the true Creator. The gods must destroy this pretender before the final phase of Creation. To suggest the Mayan sense of cyclical time and ancestral continuity, the story is told and enacted by contemporary descendants of the five characters that appear in the tale, and thus takes place in the present. In this way, the story imbedded in the participants' minds through their own oral tradition, and the story which they are actually living become strongly identified: past and present become one. The opera focuses on the storyteller, Guacamayo. The five characters are: Guacamayo, tenor; Ixmucane, dramatic soprano; Hunahpu, coloratura soprano; Ixbalanque, mezzo-soprano; and Ixpyacoc, bass-baritone. A twelve-piece band (without strings) includes two keyboardists playing live electroacoustics.