FIREBIRD

 An epic electronic adaptation of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

FIREBIRD is both a concert and an otherworldly light show. Inspired by Igor Stravinsky’s 1919 Firebird Suite, a unique orchestra of over 600 recycled car lights unleashes a hypnotic choreography of light and sound upon the audience. Together, they bring the mythical firebird to life in an overwhelming visual and musical spectacle.

“Like God playing a video game on stained-glass windows.”
de Volkskrant ★★★★

TRAILER

Currently touring the United States, Touki Delphine, by invitation of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), scoured American car graveyards to create an XL, transatlantic version of their iconic installation. FIREBIRD has already lit up the deserts of Utah, the coast of California, New York City, Arkansas, Dartmouth University in New Hampshire and the journey continues at renowned festivals and museums across the country.

Modern music for modern times; Stravinsky borrowed and combined the melodies and timings of Russian folk music, the inspiration of his mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and the state of the world around him, and proposed a new encasing for the age-old legends, this time with provocative sounds and arrangements, presenting a new future in music and how it tells our story. We salvage Stravinsky’s melodies, odd time signatures, and relentless flutters of harmony juxtaposed with sudden points of ultimate rest, and take in the world around us; introducing technology, 100 years of industry, the melting, combining and clashing of cultures, and propose our own message to the future.

Humankind has been busy, we’ve entered space, we’ve learned about the micro and the macro on levels that make us as gargantuan as we are infinitesimal, and now we stand with one leg in a new technological era. We are reinventing ourselves, and as many times before, welcoming the unknown horizon. Re-birthing out of the ashes of our current state, bringing the ancient traditions with us, and soaring at a previously impossible pace through and towards an uncharted future. With these thoughts and themes in mind we actualised our prototype into what the Firebird has become; A 32 square-meter communicating being, a collaboration between human and machine, a narrator, a fable and fortune teller, a mirror and a screen.

FIREBIRD is supported by the Performing Arts Fund NL.

“As if God were video-gaming on stained glass windows from the scrapyard.”

de Volkskrant

“Definitely one of the most unique events you’ll see this year.”

ABC4 News, USA

“An epic update of Stravinsky’s Firebird.”

De Standaard

“An immersive experience, a phenomenal experiment in form, a pagan ritual.”

Theaterkrant