An Ecstatic Voyage through Baroque Skies
Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit who spent most of his life in Rome, was above all a seeker of marvels. Known as “the last man who knew everything”, in his own eclectic and syncretic way, he explored angelology and volcanology, acoustics and Egyptian hieroglyphs, magnetism and China… (Not least, Kircher is the inventor of the word “phonosophia“: the “Knowledge through the Sound“…). Kircher was a quintessential figure of his time, the Baroque era. For his scholarly books full of imagination and images, Kircher was later admired by the Surrealists and Umberto Eco.
This lecture-performance is a mis-en-scène inspired by his only fictional work: ITER EXTATICUM (1656). Kircher himself, alias Theodidactus (“the one taught by God“), is listening to a private concert, when he falls into an ecstatic trance. Cosmiel, a higher angelic intelligence, appears to him, and, like Beatrice guiding Dante, leads him through the celestial spheres, showing him the structure of the cosmos and letting him listen to the harmony of the spheres; while Theodidactus instructs Cosmiel tout court about the Baroque. Astrea, an other mysterious being, performs the ‘Dances of the Planets‘.
We invite you to a musical voyage – that is at the same time a meditation on that strange thing called “Baroque”.
Sound and Conception: Theatrum Phonosophicum
Performers
Theodidactus: Leopoldo Siano
Cosmiel: Shushan Hyusnunts
Astrea: Hasmik Tangyan (dance)