15 Years: Orion Ascent
Chuck Santoro, Founder, Chief Creative, Proscenium
Taking Orion Ascent to new heights.
Proscenium turned 15 this year. As I look back on the productions which best capture our team’s passion for the intersection of events and theater, Ascent, Orion’s wealthtech conference comes to mind.
Some years ago I caught the revival of Pippin on Broadway, and couldn’t take my eyes off the circus acrobatics that had been woven into the show.
The team behind the theatrics, it turned out, was The 7 Fingers, a circus company out of Montreal. What a dream, I remember thinking at the time, to bring their talents to one of our shows.
We soon brought that dream to life…
“All In.”
It all started in black and white…
The 7 Fingers eased into their performance with graceful hand-to-hand acrobatics, their tempo complemented by calmly-paced on-screen visuals and focused lighting.
Then, the music hit a crescendo, everything turned “Orion Blue”, and our performers broke into a sequence of wild jumps and flips high into the air.
The theme was “All In”, and in that moment, the whole room understood it without a word being said… because The 7 Fingers are storytellers, after all, not just a circus act.
They sat with our creative team on every beat of that opening, working out how the moment should build and where it should breathe.
Our problem now, of course, is that we have to keep upping ourselves every year.
I can’t wait to see what our team creates for the opening at Orion Ascent next year.
Watch the filmAbout the author
Chuck bio here