Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
A multi-media, evening-length solo performance blending video projections, sock puppets, spoken word and original song. Using Pieter Brueghel’s painting “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” as a jumping off point, six characters: Icarus, Pieter Brueghel, Henry Hudson, The Wall Street Minotaur, Amelia Earhart, and David Rockefeller present a “strange, funny, and chilling fugue” about ambition and recklessness. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus premiered at the Abrons Arts Center November 11-20, 2010 as a special event of the MIX/NYC Queer Experimental Media Festival and was developed during residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Experimental Television Center, Mount Tremper Arts, and a Media Fellowship at Dance Theater Workshop. Early versions were presented at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Radar Reading Series, the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco and Dixon Place.
• written & performed by Samuael Topiary
• directed by Miguel Gutierrez
• live music Ryder Cooley
• electronic sound by Peter Kerlin
• video by Samuael Topiary & Peter Kerlin
• set design by Andrea Stanley
• costumes by Jocelyn Davis
• lighting design by Carrie Wood