THE CHEMICAL WEDDING OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKRUETZ (2000)
Premiered: Lied Center for Performing Arts, NE; In Progress at HERE Art Center, NYC
Choreography & Direction: Dawn Stoppiello in collaboration with the performers
Videography, Music & Direction: Mark Coniglio
Assistant Direction/Dramaturgy: Kristin Marting
Lighting Design: Susan Hamburger
Costume Design: Katrin Schnalb
Musician: Leigh Stuart, Cello and Karen Lyons (for The Lied Center for Performing Arts, NE)
Performers: Mark Coniglio, Danielle Goldman, Anthony Gongora, Sandra Tillett, Dawn Stoppiello, Michou Szabo, Pam Wagner, (Alternate) Lisa Herlinger-Thompson,
Commissioning Partners: HARP – HERE Artists Residency Program.
DESCRIPTION
This work takes its title and inspiration from an anonymous 16th Century alchemical manifesto. The tale is part spiritual allegory, part scientific discovery as we follow one man’s transformation to enlightenment. Christian Rosenkreutz exists in two time zones – one five hundred years in the past (1500 AD) and the other 50 years in the future (2050 AD). Both experience a “chemical wedding”: one transformed by the ancient, spiritually rich technology of alchemy, the other through a secular, future technology of cybernetic reconstitution.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Watch the Full Performance Video (1h 7m)
REVIEWS
It’s Chemical: Frankincense and Surveillance with Troika: “Dawn Stoppiello and Mark Coniglio, the artistic directors of Troika Ranch, complement each others’ brains with beauty and brawn. “The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,” which opened last night at HERE Arts Center, begins in a cloud of frankincense and ends in a barrage of technological surveillance. Troika Ranch’s signature innovations in media slice through the story of a 17th Century alchemist with aleatoric text, humor, and a fully realized dance language.” – Chris Dohse, The Dance Insider