The Phoenix
A SONG CYCLE ABOUT ALL EXISTENCE
FOR DANCE AND PUPPETS
Written by
John Corbin Goldsberry
There is a legend concerning a great bird, living only on air, which, at the end of its days, burns itself in its own pyre, only to emerge reborn from its own ashes. Likewise, is a legend of an unscalable mountain peak upon which rests the abode of gods. This latter tale is relatively mundane and seemingly unimportant except for to one who, in each age, passes through its shadow, and in doing so, assumes the task of ascending impossible heights.
So begins this modern multimedia ballet and philosophical allegory about the evolution of existence itself. Beginning with the first stirrings of human sentience and moving through myth, civilization, war, flight, technology, space, and the edge of post-human consciousness, the work follows the age of man as one brief but blazing chapter in a far larger cosmic cycle. The Phoenix is not merely a bird of rebirth, but the avatar-guide of an age, leading humanity from its awakening in the ashes toward the ultimate question: what becomes of us when we are finished being what we are now?
Deeper Than The Sea – The Song of Trevelayn
The Ghosts of Atlantis – The Song in Defiance of Moloch
The River of Time – The Song of Agrius
RA- The Song of Silicone
Air – Song for the Magpie
The Phoenix
A Dance Cycle About All Existence
First conceived in the 1980s as a concept album and operetta for an empty opera house, The Phoenix has evolved into a multimedia rock ballet combining music, dance, mythology, puppetry, and cinematic imagery. At its center is a nameless child, represented not by an actor but by a simple figure made of sackcloth. As the story progresses, the puppet is replaced by increasingly larger versions of itself, eventually becoming a towering figure and, ultimately, the Phoenix.
The child's journey unfolds in four movements, corresponding to the seasons of both the natural world and human existence: Earth and childhood, Sea and adolescence, Sky and adulthood, and Space and maturity. Across these movements, the child encounters the accumulated experience of humanity: the awakening of consciousness, the birth of civilization, the creation of gods, the invention of laws, the violence of war, the pursuit of knowledge, and the emergence of technologies that carry humanity beyond the Earth itself. A World of Gods and Voices.
The score moves across musical worlds as varied as the civilizations and ideas it explores, from elemental drums and flutes to folk traditions, industrial rhythms, rock, and expansive symphonic textures. Each mythological figure brings a distinct voice and understanding of existence.Typhon embodies chaos and destruction. Inanna gives voice to grief and loss. Marduk confronts the divisions created by language and civilization. Hathor, Pegasus, Pandora, Prometheus, and others offer their own visions of what it means to live, to create, to suffer, and to transcend.Their songs are not simply musical interludes. They are encounters with competing truths, each challenging our avatar's growing understanding of the world. Music, Movement and Metamorphosis.
The Phoenix is conceived as a theatrical experience in which the visual and musical languages are inseparable. Live vocal performances unfold against a recorded musical score, punctuated by instrumental soloists. Contemporary dance, shadow puppetry, theatrical lighting, and projected imagery transform a largely abstract stage into landscapes of memory, mythology, history, and imagination. Dancers become storms, civilizations, conflicts, and the passage of time. Images appear upon translucent fabrics, turning movement itself into a projection surface. The growing cloth figure remains at the center, an increasingly monumental embodiment of humanity's accumulated experience. Yet the journey is not simply one of physical or technological evolution.The gods themselves are challenged. Old certainties dissolve. The distinctions between creator and creation, individual and collective, past and future become increasingly difficult to sustain.
Ultimately, The Phoenix is not a story about a mythical bird rising from the ashes. It is a philosophical allegory about humanity's struggle to understand its own existence, its place in the universe, and the possibility of becoming something greater than it has been.
The Phoenix is not the destination. It is the journey through which humanity discovers what it might yet become.