A Riff on the 1945 French Film Classic Children of Paradise
ABOUT
THE PARADISE PROJECT is a group performance work that told the story of a visual artist who became fixated with the 1945 French film classic Les Enfants du Paradis (The Children of Paradise). Through emulation, transformation, and eventually madness, he uses his obsession as a way to escape his existence.
This contemporary tale includes a close friend of the artist, a woman who accompanies him to a pivotal screening of the film, and the guy that runs the projection at the movie revival house. The work then morphs into live re-enactments of scenes from the film, which include the enigmatic characters Natalie, Frederick, and especially Garance, who represents the focus of his obsession, as he literally disappears into the on-stage film projection.
I had long been wanting to create a work based on The Children of Paradise, especially considering my already extensive history of running around in billowy white fabric.
“This excursion into dreamland is a lovely condensation of what Mr. Kelly has achieved again and again in his three decades as a boundary-defying performance artist, a moment that manages to suggest an elaborate interior labyrinth with a few fluid physical gestures, steeped in the kind of artful simplicity that poets are always striving for.” – The New York Times
PRODUCTION DETAILS
Text, choreography, direction, video by John Kelly
Music by Michael Torke
Lyrics by Mark Campbell
Lighting design by Stan Pressner
Costumes by Donna Zakowska
Sound by Tim Schellenbaum
Developed at The Sundance Theater Institute, produced by Alyce Dissette and John Kelly Performance at The Kitchen, NY, 2002.
WITH: Wendy Hill, Walter Hudson, John Kelly and Kelli O’Hara