The Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

 

 

 

home

films & videos

installation
& design
projects

current projects

CV

culture spy

 

contact 


Using Pieter Brueghel’s painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" as a jumping off point, performer Samuael Topiary impersonates six characters: Pieter Brueghel, Henry Hudson, The Wall Street Minotaur, Amelia Earhart, David Rockefeller and Icarus to explore the epic rhyming schemes of the history of empire and the human compulsion to escape our physical limits.

Directed by NY choreographer Miguel Gutierrez with a live soundscore by Peter Kerlin, writer/performer/video artist Samuael Topiary incarnates six mythic characters: Pieter Brueghel, Henry Hudson, ‘the Wall Street Minotaur,’ Amelia Earhart, David Rockefeller and Icarus; weaving together a strange, funny and chilling fugue about art, architecture and technology; recklessness and ambition, questioning western culture’s continual compulsion to tempt fate and reach for the unattainable. The performance blends together video projections, live musical saw by C. Ryder Cooley, digital vocal manipulation, sock puppets, song and spoken word, featuring fantastical costume designs by Joceyln Davis.

> view video samples

WORK-IN-PROGRESS PREMIERE:

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 -- DixonPlace, NYC

written & performed by samuael topiary

directed by miguel gutierrez

sound design by peter kerlin

video by peter & topiary

costumes design by jocelyn davis

video projection design by c. ryder cooley

live music by c. ryder cooley & peter kerlin