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JONNY DANCIGER
director-designer
Best
Family
Show
Winner
Edfringe '23
Best
Design
Nominee
Offies '24
Van Gogh
Composed by Michael Gordon, with additional readings from Van Gogh's letters
Company: Orchestra Vox | Venues: St John's Auditorium (Oxford), OSO Arts Centre (London)
Created with support from T.O.R.C.H and the Asmolean Museum.






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Photos by Giacomo Giannelli
Webinar with composer, conductor, director & art historian.
Promotional trailer.
Director & Technical Design Jonny Danciger
Musical Director Hannah von Wiehler
Set Design Emma Turner
Vincent (Actor) Louis Pieris
​Soprano Emily Gibson
Tenor Andrew Woodmansey
Baritone Chris Murphy
My close friend & collaborator Hannah von Wiehler has synaesthesia. It’s different for every individual, but Hannah can ‘see’ music, and ‘hear’ paintings. The concept for this show emerged when I asked her which piece of music creates the most beautiful visual experience. The answer was Michael Gordon’s Van Gogh.
Whilst there is not enough information to know that Van Gogh himself was a synaesthete, his letters certainly reveal an extra-sensory dimension to his experience. He describes his contrasts of colour as ‘the mysterious vibrations of relation tones’, seeks in his paintings the ‘abstraction’ afforded to musicians, and describes his episodes in the asylum of St. Remy as ‘confusions of sight and sound’. His artworks encapsulate this intense sensory experience.
Studying Van Gogh's letters, the concept became clear: to present Van Gogh’s psyche on stage, using Hannah’s synaesthesia to inform the design and unlock an extra-sensory narrative. The audience is invited to experience Van Gogh’s states of mind charted through five locations, from his frantic search for purpose in London to his admission to the asylum in St. Remy. The musical score does not feature an actor, but it was clear with a project of this ambition that we needed a physical ‘Van Gogh’ on stage to lead the action. So an actor was cast, and spoken excerpts the letters were included to anchor the piece in the story of the artist.
Early support came from T.O.R.C.H and the Ashmolean Museum, who facilitated research into the letters, synaesthesia, and multi-sensory technologies. Discussions followed with the composer himself, and a public webinar was held in February 2021 between the team, Michael Gordon and curator Dr Lena Fritsch.
Meanwhile, an exciting design process was underway. Amongst other things, a bespoke artificial intelligence was trained on curated datasets of Van Gogh’s works, creating a sort of ‘digital psyche’. This was developed and used to create video materials for the piece.
Jonny Danciger's production of Michael Gordon's Van Gogh will live in my memory for a long time to come, largely because of its compelling visual imagery. [...] The stage is filled with blazing colour, Van-Gogh-style, doubtless inspired by conductor Hannah Schneider, whose synaesthetic interpretation of the music pervades the scene.
At the front of the set, meanwhile, Vincent's prolific painting is evoked when the translucent screens, that were initially part of the monoliths, are detached and moved downstage, becoming canvases for projections that suggest the dazzling, increasingly psychotic imagination of the celebrated painter.
For me, this is the pinnacle of Danciger's inspired direction. Van Gogh, having freed himself from the materialistic confines of the empty picture frame, now finds himself the prisoner of his own imagination. In the final, most compelling image of the piece, narrow strips of cloth are attached to Vincent's head, becoming conduits with the various translucent screens. The effect is to lock him into a position from which he cannot move. It is as if his work, having begun life as an extension of himself, has now subsumed him entirely.
Paddy Gormley, former reviewer for ‘Music & Musicians’
Ground-breaking, trail-blazing, breathtaking and beyond innovative. It made me very happy to see a production of this quality on my doorstep.
Yvonne Evans, Seven Star Arts
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