Jonsi - Go Live

In 2010 Jónsi Birgisson, best known as the singer from Icelandic post-rock heroes Sigur Rós, teamed up with Fifty Nine Productions to create an extraordinary live show designed to tour the world. Not just a concert, but an exciting cross-artform collaboration, Go Live mixed music, projection, light and sound to bring Jónsi’s first solo album to life on stage.

To create the show, 59 brought together an exceptional creative team, led by director Leo Warner. He co-designed the set with regular collaborator Phil Eddols and the projection with the other 59 directors Mark Grimmer and Lysander Ashton. Lighting designer Bruno Poet (who worked with 59 on Al Gran Sole Carico D’Amore, “the most acclaimed production of 2009 at the Salzburg Festival”) brought his “searing and shadowy emotional palette”; to the piece, ensuring lighting and projection work together seamlessly as one.

Peter Stenhouse, 59’s director of animation, created the spectacular and sophisticated animation for the show, drawing out the themes and stories of the music, and which helped to transport the audience from one magical scene to another. Peter was the lead artist behind the virtuosic centrepiece for the Metropolitan Opera’s 125th Gala Anniversary, in which the animals from a famous Chagall mural came to life and led the stunned audience in a animated exploration of the inner workings of the Met stage.

The show, in its completed form used both physical set elements and ephemeral components conjured up using a combination of projection, light and magic to transform the stage into a living world of animals, dynamic artwork and shifting ethereal landscapes.