After months of research and design, co-Artistic Directors Jim Lasko and Frank Maugeri recently unveiled the company’s newest contraption, The Celebration Vehicle: “…a mobile, prize-awarding, fire concert,” described Lasko.
Maugeri added, “The Celebration Vehicle can drive into an already populated public space and quite literally explode with ingenuity and drama. It’s designed to bring people together with a moment of joyous celebration.”
This mechanical wonder is built onto a Mazda RX-7 chassis, featuring a fire organ, a DJ station, a huge gramophone horn on a hydraulic lift, and an opera singer perched on an elevated platform. Synchronized to the live musical arrangement of the DJ and performing opera singer, the fire organ shoots columns of fire twenty feet into the air through valve-pipes. At the center of the guerilla event is a surprise gift (valued at up to $10,000) awarded by raffle to two lucky spectators.
“Redmoon brings art out from behind the heavy hinged doors of our cultural institutions,” Maugeri continued. “It puts it on the streets, on buses, and in alleys. Redmoon believes events like this should be a part of people’s everyday lives, not a form of specialized consumption.”
Lasko summarized, “We’re convinced that sometimes the best art is art that surprises, that comes from nowhere and goes to nowhere, that it disrupts our daily life and broadens our vision. It’s our conviction that art woven into everyday life can help to blur the boundaries between life and art, between passive acceptance and active engagement, between functioning and living. The Celebration Vehicle is built to bring these convictions to life.”
WHAT: REDMOON SUMMER GUERILLA EVENT – “The Celebration Vehicle”
WHEN: July – October 2011
WHERE: Throughout Chicagoland
ADMISSION: Free
For up-to-date Guerilla Event dates, times and locations – follow Redmoon at: www.redmoon.org – on Facebook – and Twitter @redmoontheater
ABOUT REDMOON
Redmoon is a collective of artists from across disciplines under the direction of Jim Lasko and Frank Maugeri. It was founded in 1990 to create a unique brand of public art committed to the highest quality artistic product and to the promotion of civic well-being. Pulling with conviction from contemporary art forms and ancient theatrical approaches, Redmoon has created a performance style that is equal parts pageantry, gadgetry, acrobatics, and ephemera. It has garnered international attention for its unique events that have been seen in unforgettable locations: from the Jackson Park Lagoon and the façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art to Belmont Harbor and performance venues as diverse as Steppenwolf to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Over recent years, Redmoon has developed projects in Holland, Ireland, France, Australia and Brazil and is honored to have been invited in 2009 by the White House for a Halloween spectacle performance, as testimony to their long-standing commitment to civically engaged art.
Redmoon creates unexpected theater events in unexpected locations.
For more information on events schedule, visit www.redmoon.org or call the Redmoon info line: 312-850-8440 x 100.