The 2002 performances of Failing Kansas at the New Zealand Festival created a scandal and ultimately a sensation. Credited with knocking Osama bin Laden off of the front page of the National newspaper and dominating TV and radio for days, the piece was ultimately a sold out triumph heralded as “A New Art Form." Now, almost twenty years later, Rouse has assembled the original footage and live recordings into a complete concert film.
2014 performance of "The Demo," a music theater work written by composer/performers Mikel Rouse and Ben Neill based on Douglas Engelbart’s historic 1968 demonstration of early computer technology. Engelbart’s 1968 demo rolled out virtually everything that would define modern computing; videoconferencing, hyperlinks, networked collaboration, digital text editing, and something called a “mouse.” The Demo re-imagines Engelbart’s historic demonstration as a technologically-infused music theater piece, a new form of hybrid performance.
World premiere of "The Demo," a music theater work written by composer/performers Mikel Rouse and Ben Neill based on Douglas Engelbart’s historic 1968 demonstration of early computer technology. Engelbart’s 1968 demo rolled out virtually everything that would define modern computing; videoconferencing, hyperlinks, networked collaboration, digital text editing, and something called a “mouse.” The Demo re-imagines Engelbart’s historic demonstration as a technologically-infused music theater piece, a new form of hybrid performance.
Retrospective concert with special guest Jeff McErlain at National Sawdust on April 29, 2017.
The Canadian premiere of Mikel Rouse's multimedia opera Dennis Cleveland at the 2008 Luminato Festival.
A short film music album hybrid for the Metronome project by Mikel Rouse.
A live performance film of Mikel Rouse's song cycle Gravity Radio at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010.
This is the small feature film that formed the integrated backdrop for the live performance/music piece. As abstract images and sound combine with the various stories and insights of the subjects interviewed, an illustration of memory is created. Seemingly unrelated video images merge with the images of the storytellers to create a common thread: the views of the Silent Minority.
A 2002 live performance of Mikel Rouse's Dennis Cleveland, a multimedia opera set entirely on a television talk show in the late 20th century.
Drawing on the richness of the good old days of cinema with live music and a thoroughly modern, “hyper-real” film experience with multiple screens and surround sound, The End of Cinematics examines the 21st-century phenomenon of viewing media content in fragmented form. From channel surfing to MTV to formulaic Hollywood films and sitcoms, we’re accustomed to—and adept at—filling in the details of storylines, of grasping an idea and determining its conclusion.
Mikel Rouse is an American composer, filmmaker and artist associated with the Downtown NYC movement Totalism. He is perhaps best known for his "talk show opera" Dennis Cleveland.
By browsing this website, you accept our cookies policy.