The Hero's Journey: CAVE of ECHOES

About the Concert

Explore the cycle of the monomythic hero‘s journey through music and dance

THE STORY: The title of our show is drawn from the concept of “the hero’s journey” that Joseph Campbell explored in his 1949 book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, and which has influenced many artists and writers since it was published, including film makers George Lucas (Star Wars) and the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix).

The Camerata develops this concept into a musical concert inspired by the stories of heroes through mankind’s history. The audience will be able to visualize “echoes” of the stories of heroes they hear through the music performed by the Camerata and this visualization will be represented on stage our two dancers, who will through their movements combine and form patterns that resonate with the stories told through the music. A giant-screen Christie Digital video projection will display the backdrop for the journey.

THE SHOW: Four main musical works will form the structure of the concert, and will follow the emergence of the hero, the crisis he faces and his return to humanity to share his new vision.

Hugh Marsh will perform his How the Violin Was Born from his Smashing Pumpkins album to introduce the hero’s origins.
Act III from the seminal American composer Steve Reich’s The Cave will explore the nature of the hero.
Michael Occhipinti’s The Great Farini, based on the famous Canadian explorer/adventurer William Hunt, will lead the hero back to our world
the rock band Tool’s Forty Six and Two will reveal the hero’s transformed Jungian nature.

THE CAVE: Our performance space, the three-story high Rotunda in the Kitchener City Hall, functions as a “cave”, and our audience will be able to visualize the “echoes” of the stories of heroes they hear through the music we present: this visualization will be represented on stage by two dancers, who will through their movements combine and form patterns that resonate with the stories told through the music.

The effect will be like a virtual real-life experience of a role-playing game (RPG), where the musical soloists are the game players, with the musicians and the dancers enacting the roles in the real world.

Producer/sound designer Earl McCluskie transforms the theatre into a mythical experience of light, sound and images featuring the visual photography of Gerry King.