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Gov­er­nors Island Arts Presents the NYC Pre­mière of Tou­ki Del­phine’s FIREBIRD

Aug 18, 2025 11:40 am

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“An immer­sive expe­ri­ence, a phe­nom­e­nal exper­i­ment in form, a pagan rit­u­al.” – The Theaterkrant

“As if God were video-gam­ing on stained glass win­dows from the scrap­yard.” – The Volkskrant

Gov­er­nors Island Arts announced today the New York City pre­mière of FIRE­BIRD, the hyp­not­ic, genre-defy­ing visu­al arts per­for­mance from Ams­ter­dam-based artist col­lec­tive Tou­ki Del­phine. Fea­tur­ing an orches­tra of light made from more than 500 recy­cled car tail­lights, FIRE­BIRD will be per­formed on Octo­ber 3 – 4, 2025, at the Island’s Parade Ground. The per­for­mance, which orig­i­nat­ed in The Nether­lands in 2019, has been tour­ing through­out Europe since and has been pre­vi­ous­ly pre­sent­ed in the Unit­ed States at MASS MoCA, Utah’s Cen­ter for the Arts at Kayen­ta, and at the W.O.W. fes­ti­val in San Diego.

“We’re thrilled to bring Tou­ki Delphine’s FIRE­BIRD to New York City dur­ing this mile­stone moment for Gov­er­nors Island,” said Juan Pablo Siles, Asso­ciate Cura­tor and Pro­duc­er at the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island and cura­tor of the INTER­VEN­TIONS per­for­mance series. ​“This work is a lumi­nous ode to rein­ven­tion and rebirth that will daz­zle the sens­es and pro­vide an unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence, as well as a fit­ting cel­e­bra­tion of trans­for­ma­tion as we mark the Island’s 20^th year open to the public.” 

“When we first con­sid­ered where we would like to present the new Amer­i­can ver­sion of FIRE­BIRD, Gov­er­nors Island was at the top of the list of loca­tions in the Unit­ed States. We make art using recy­cled mate­ri­als, not only the tail­lights are recy­cled, but we’ve tak­en Stravin­sky’s rhythms and melodies and warped and recy­cled them, giv­ing the piece new life. Gov­er­nors Island not only has an inspir­ing zero-waste ini­tia­tive, but the island itself was cre­at­ed part­ly from land­fill mate­ri­als, mak­ing it seem an excel­lent match for our artis­tic wall of trash. Addi­tion­al­ly, part of the cre­ative vision of the piece is offer­ing the audi­ence the expe­ri­en­tial aspect of shed­ding or cloak­ing one’s indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ty for the length of the per­for­mance, and as a uni­form group encoun­ter­ing and reflect­ing this musi­cal mono­lith. Gov­er­nors Island, and its spe­cif­ic atmos­phere; seclud­ed and serene yet in direct prox­im­i­ty to the bustling bor­oughs of New York, we think will offer an ide­al set­ting for FIRE­BIRD, cre­at­ing a spe­cial expe­ri­ence unique to this loca­tion,” said Chris Doyle, co-artis­tic direc­tor of Tou­ki Delphine.

Inspired by com­pos­er Igor Stravinsky’s 1919 Fire­bird Suite, FIRE­BIRD pays homage to his musi­cal cre­ations with a per­for­mance cen­tered around a mas­sive wall of light designed to illu­mi­nate the dance of the fire­bird. The unique sen­so­ry jour­ney allows vis­i­tors to rev­el in the glow­ing cel­e­bra­tion and hyp­not­ic dis­play that will trans­form the Parade Ground.

The audi­ence expe­ri­ence begins upon arrival, where all tick­ethold­ers will receive shim­mer­ing metal­lic capes to don once they dis­em­bark, kick­start­ing the spec­ta­cle en route to the show. Guid­ed by the artists them­selves, this glit­ter­ing col­lec­tive will make its way to the Parade Ground — set against the dra­mat­ic Low­er Man­hat­tan sky­line — where FIRE­BIRD bursts to life in a hyp­not­ic dance of syn­chro­nized light, cour­tesy of 500 recy­cled car tail­lights that have been sal­vaged from scrap­yards in the North­east­ern Unit­ed States, all set to Tou­ki Delphine’s con­tem­po­rary com­po­si­tion. Vis­i­tors will also be able to enjoy food and drinks avail­able from Island ven­dors and a post-show gath­er­ing with the artists after each performance. 

Tou­ki Del­phine is an Ams­ter­dam-based artist col­lec­tive fea­tur­ing artists Bo Koek, Rik Elst­geest, Chris Doyle, and John van Oost­rum. The col­lec­tive is a bound­ary-push­ing group of musi­cians, per­form­ers, and visu­al artists mak­ing waves nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly with mon­u­men­tal light and sound instal­la­tions, all cre­at­ed from recy­cled mate­ri­als. Tou­ki Delphine’s work cre­ates poet­ic encoun­ters between humans and machines and is inspired by nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na, the cli­mate cri­sis and the idea of nature as a liv­ing whole.

The con­cept, music and visu­als for FIRE­BIRD are by Bo Koek, Rik Elst­geest, Chris Doyle and John van Oost­rum. The instal­la­tion con­cept is by John van Oost­rum and it is designed by Tou­ki Del­phine with assis­tance from The­un Mosk. Tick­ets to all per­for­mances are now avail­able online at www​.gov​is​land​.org.

The per­for­mance was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed in The Nether­lands in 2019 and has been tour­ing through­out Europe since. In 2024, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with MASS MoCA, Tou­ki Del­phine built this Amer­i­can ver­sion of FIRE­BIRD using local­ly sal­vaged parts, and fol­low­ing its pre­mier at MASS MoCA, it has been shown at Cen­ter for the Arts at Kayen­ta in Utah and at the W.O.W. Fes­ti­val in San Diego. Pri­or to the group’s NYC debut on Gov­er­nors Island, the piece will be shown at Dart­mouth Col­lege, and after­wards it will head to the Momen­tary Con­tem­po­rary Art Muse­um in Arkansas. FIRE­BIRD was cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with MASS MoCA and sup­port­ed by the Per­form­ing Arts Fund NL. Addi­tion­al sup­port by Dutch Cul­ture USA at the Con­sulate Gen­er­al of the King­dom of the Netherlands.

FIRE­BIRD is part of a per­for­mance series on the Island titled INTER­VEN­TIONS that is curat­ed by Juan Pablo Siles, Asso­ciate Cura­tor and Pro­duc­er at the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island, under the lead­er­ship of Lau­ren Haynes, Head Cura­tor of Gov­er­nors Island Arts and Vice Pres­i­dent at the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island. Pre­vi­ous per­for­mances pre­sent­ed as part of this series include works by Modesto ​“Flako” Jimenez, Indige­nous Enter­prise, Dance Hegin­both­am, Rena Anakwe, Inua Ellams, and Lenio Kak­lea. An upcom­ing per­for­mance, del­i­cate peo­ple by Ruth Childs and Cécile Bouf­fard, will be co-pre­sent­ed by L’Alliance New York’s Cross­ing The Line Fes­ti­val and will make its North Amer­i­can Pre­mière on Gov­er­nors Island on Octo­ber 4, 2025.

Gov­er­nors Island Arts presents its pro­gram with sup­port from Bloomberg Phil­an­thropies, Cha­ri­na Endow­ment Fund, Star­dust Fund, Sur­go Foun­da­tion US, Don­ald A. Pels Char­i­ta­ble Trust, the New York State Coun­cil on the Arts (NYSCA) with the sup­port of the Office of the Gov­er­nor and the New York State Leg­is­la­ture, Car­rie Den­ning Jack­son and Dan Jack­son, the Rip­ple Foun­da­tion, the Howard Gilman Foun­da­tion, the Jerome L. Greene Foun­da­tion, and the Cowles Char­i­ta­ble Trust.