ANGELS OF SWEDENBORG

Ping Chong’s landmark 1985 dance-theater piece. Performed in a heavenly arena of feathers, Angels is a hauntingly beautiful and wry meditation on contemporary man caught between longings for material comfort and spiritual enlightenment.

A 2011 revival featured performers from the Great Jones Repertory Company, the resident artistic company of La MaMa ETC, and served as the launch event of La MaMa’s 50th anniversary season, as well as Ping Chong’s own 40th anniversary.

Ping Chong on ANGELS OF SWEDENBORG:
“I imagine that all of us wonder at one or many times what it would be like to go to heaven. Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th Century scientist and philosopher, was one of the few privileged to make this journey in his lifetime.Although he embodied the European Enlightenment in many ways, Swedenborg experienced extensive visions that allowed him to travel to both heaven and hell and returned to write thirty volumes about what he discovered there.

I first encountered Swedenborg through Jorge Luis Borge’s singular work The Book Of Imaginary Beings. I drew inspiration from both these sources to re-imagine Swedenborg as a contemporary man caught between his longing for material comfort and spiritual attainment.

The production combines dance, theatre, music and multi-media projections and features eight angels, two spirits and, of course, Swedenborg himself, cavorting in a heavenly corral of swirling white feathers.”

Angels of Swedenborg, 1985

THE ANGELS OF SWEDENBORG was originally commissioned by The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1985 and toured extensively in the United States and Europe including engagements at the Walker Arts Center and BAM’s Next Wave Festival.