A multi-disciplinary work developed from the music of Dirk Johan Stromberg and Video of Clare Chong. The work includes a close choreography of movement, light music, images, and theatre.
The work is currently being developed for more theatrical performances. The work is adaptable to different spaces as well as different opportunities. At its most fundamental level, the work consists of a live performance of music and video. More elaborate productions include dance, scenic design, and lighting design to create an integration of worlds between the sonic, video and physical dimensions.
Images Of Ascension is a work for Music, Video, Dance and Theatre created by Dirk Johan Stromberg and Clare Chong.
The work stems from a discussion with Robert Reigle in the winter of 2016. Upon hearing Dirk Stromberg’s work “Rising Tones” Robert noted, from his research, how few works truly ascend in pitch. Reigle had only found a handful of works in his 40 years of research that ascended consistently on them macro level. The ensuing discussion was the impetus to create a way of thinking and approaching the concept of ascending material and through collaboration has grown to include video, dance, and elements of theatre.
Dirk continued to apply different concepts of ascending material through formal wedge shapes, hyper-instrumental possibilities and granular concepts in a cross-genre set of structure improvisations drawing from jazz, electronic music, ambient music all steeped deeply in a psychedelic aesthetic. All the original music was performed on Dirk’s creation, the Phallophone. Described physically as something between a lightsaber and a car muffler and musically as the perfect cross between an acoustic instrument, analog synth and an instrument for electro-acoustic creation (Laurent Soulie – University of Bordeaux, SCRIME).
Clare Chong, excited by the musical language and performative elements of the electronic sound world, then responded to the sounds of Ascension, resulting in the Images of Ascension. The zentai clad Phallophonist, Dancer and other creatures persistent through the psychedelic video create a series of journies that imply another aesthetic of existence. The videos are not explorations of Ascension so much as a physical manifestation of the sound world created.
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Dirk Johan Stromberg 