Performance Notes

ECSTATIC JOURNEY is a story revolving around themes of love, irretrievable loss, spiritual confusion, exploration and transformation, healing, the inexplicable, religion and the decadence of materialism as the world moves inexorably closer towards a new world culture. It takes the form of a multimedia music/theatre/dance piece, or more simply, a contemporary opera.

The first notable performance aesthetic is the separation of the body and the voice. This manifests itself by having 4 vocalists sing all the characters' parts while 6 dancer/actors embody the characters. The singers are amplified through microphones and visible on an upstage platform throughout. The dancer/actors speak most of the dialogue and lip-synch much of the sung text.

The purpose of separating the voice and body is three-fold. First, it allows the maximum vocal concentration with no impingement on movement allowing demanding dance combined with complex vocal passages which might not otherwise be possible. Second, it explores the benefits of technology as well as the problems it has caused in audio at a time when audiences have changed their listening to accommodate an amplified world. Lastly, it is a literal manifestation of "ecstasy" which comes from the Greek "ekstasis", meaning ek = "out" + histani "to cause to stand" or when put together "to stand outside the body".
 
The second notable performance aesthetic is the interactive use of video. This further removes even the image from the body. Some onstage performers (most notably the Narrator, The Christian Science Practitioner and the Dr. Rev. during his broadcast) are seen primarily on video. They interact with onstage performers as well as the audience "directly" through the two monitors Downstage Left and Right and a third projection screen Upstage Center.

There is also recorded video of performers who interact with live players. Finally, there is one character, Raoul, who is expressed on video only in text. He is the supertitles, a subjective voice who interprets with an opinion, and comments on the action; at times assisting and at others contradicting the Narrator.
 
Finally, in performance ECSTATIC JOURNEY interlaces more information than can be consciously processed including audio, video, and movement. In this near sensory overload, each audience member is forced to focus on different area of the production thereby perceiving a completely individual performance. This complexity is then juxtaposed with the simplest melody, image or movement. These contrasts are crucial to the piece.

ECSTATIC JOURNEY melds these aesthetics with roots in music theatre, dance theatre and experimental theatre into a new vision.