Constellation Stories at Springfield and Boston (MA), and Florence (Italy)

During the last 6 months Constellation Stories: Stories of the Night Sky (see an earlier post about the premiere here) has been performed twice at two different planetariums in Massachusets, namely at the Seymour Planetarium in Springfield and at the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science, Boston. The first of these took place on Saturday the 5th of November 2022, and the second the 18th of May in 2023. The event in Boston was sold out!

July 11 2023 our piece was also integrated into a performance that Merli Guerra entitled Desiderium: Remnants of Longing that took place at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Italy during the Meeting of European Theatre Academies (META). The performance was directed by Merli V. Guerra and Yoshinori Tanokura, and the performers were Alexa Barreiros, Annie Challice, Kate Harbison, Haley Hartline, Jossie Hunter, McKenzie Jones, Kaedon Knight, Jamie Peña, Jennifer Profera, Aniky Salima, Marissa Stellato, and Maddie “Sully” Sullivan.

The piece is a dance performance with original music composed by myself and Madeleine Shapiro and choreography by Merli V. Guerra with dancers from the Luminarium Dance Company. The composition was made through remote collaboration between Shapiro, contributing with virtuoso cello improvisation from New York City, and myself, contributing with electronic processing, adding other types of material and the overall mixing and production, working from Genova, Italy and Trondheim, Norway. The dance piece is based on astronomy-based myths from Estonia, and Madeleine has implemented a folk tune from that country in her improvisation.

Photos of the Boston event by Golden Lion Photography

The Boston performances featured dancers Alexa Barreiros, Melenie Diarbekirian, Kate Harbison, Joscelyn E. Hunter, McKenzie Lani Jones, Jamie Peña, Aniky Salima, and Marissa Stellato. It was reported that several hundreds of visitors attended both events.

Video from the Boston performance

See an earlier post for a video from the premiere with the full performance at the premiere. You could also check out The Place Project for extensive information about whole event at the Springfield museum along with several articles in local newspapers.