Staff Writer- Evangelyn Hill
Coming up this weekend is one of Gustavus’s most popular yearly events: Christmas in Christ Chapel (CinCC). Services will be this Friday and Saturday, Dec. 5-6 at 7:30 p.m., with an additional 2:30 p.m. show on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 7.
Tickets are currently sold out for all three services. However, the Saturday evening service will be livestreamed for free on the Gustavus Adolphus College’s YouTube channel, where you can also find recordings of past performances.
Christmas in Christ Chapel will last approximately 90 minutes, and feature Gustavus student singers, dancers, and musicians. This year’s title is “Seeking Hope: Dreams of a New Way.”
Chad Winterfeldt, artistic director for this year’s Christmas in Christ Chapel, described the theme of the service.
“What I see as an important aspect of the whole service is that we have a continuous storyline based upon the biblical account of the Magi. It is a story of journey, adoration, and taking a new path. Our service begins with an individual singer, who represents the seeker in all of us, entering the space holding a single lantern… as the service concludes, we see 12 dancers leave the stage holding lanterns, representing a collective movement,” Winterfeldt said.
Ben Hilding is one of two newly appointed Deans of Christ Chapel and has been closely watching the rehearsal process since last summer. He explained that Christmas in Christ Chapel hasn’t always sold out in previous years, but that this year’s surge in attendees “speaks to the fact that this is a beloved Gustavus tradition and a powerful worship service.”
He added that the livestream will be exceptionally high quality, essentially giving viewers a front-row seat.
Christmas in Christ Chapel isn’t simply a show; Hilding emphasized the deeper meaning behind the yearly Gustavus tradition, “This is more than just a performance… more than entertainment. It’s really grounded in the roots of this college, in the roots of the Christian faith. It’s a worship service.”
This year’s service strives to show the hope that led the Magi on their journey to find the baby Jesus. “Even when you’re off the path you thought you were supposed to be on, it doesn’t mean you’re without hope. And that means a lot to me personally,” Hilding said.
For Hilding, a memorable part of the service is when the chaplains leave the pulpit and are replaced by students, who sing “Reach down, Lord, reach your justice down, when we walk on the broken road.” “It gives me goosebumps… we do walk on broken roads sometimes, but we pray that the Lord will reach down and give us hope,” Hilding said. That feeling of hope is what Hilding wants guests to take away with them from the service.
“I hope they feel like they entered the story, and they could find themselves along for the journey of the Magi and imagining new ways in which they might also receive hope in whatever unforeseen roads they find themselves on,” Hilding said.
Christmas in Christ Chapel will consist of three main segments: Journey, telling how the Magi traveled from afar to find Jesus; Adoration, celebrating the joy of Jesus’ birth; and Dream, which reflects how the Magi were warned in a dream to leave Bethlehem by a different path to avoid King Herod.
This continuation of the story past Bethlehem was a very intentional choice on the part of the planning committee. Hilding put it this way: “God doesn’t stop at the manger. God keeps going.”
This year, the chaplains commissioned a piece of art to accompany Christmas in Christ Chapel. “Journey,” by Dr. He Qi, is featured on the event’s program and inspired much of the creative work for the service.
Hilding explained that the painting encourages viewers to see themselves in the Magi (who, despite popular belief, weren’t actually kings). Qi’s painting depicts the Magi in multiple genders and a variety of ages, even placing a cowboy hat on the head of one.
“Journey” reflects this year’s CinCC theme of journeying or seeking. The creative team drew inspiration from it, including Sarah Hauss, the choreographer.
Hauss used the colors from the painting to inspire the dancers’ costumes and the lantern “orbs” they will carry. Hauss called it a “journey of hope,” stating that, like the Magi, we are “searching for something, looking for guidance.”
Christmas in Christ Chapel reflects almost a year’s worth of work. According to Hilding, the planning process starts in January; students begin to rehearse in the fall.
The service involves singing, orchestral and bell music, and dance (the Gustavus Dance Company). It will also incorporate poetry and readings from the gospel of Matthew.
CinCC involves all three of Gustavus’s choirs: the Gustavus Choir, which is the school’s touring choir; the Choir of Christ Chapel, which is open to all and sings in other church services and liturgies at Gustavus; and the Lucia Singers, a choir made up of only sopranos and altos that sings at the yearly Lucia Festival. Dr. Andrew Kendall is in charge of the Lucia Singers and the Choir of Christ Chapel and has helped with the creative process of Christmas in Christ Chapel.
When asked about his favorite part of the yearly tradition, he said, “I love the collaborative way that it comes together. It’s a true team effort from my colleagues in the music department, the Chaplain’s office, our friends at Heroic Productions, our choreographer, all of our designers, and our students.”
Like the rest of the creative team, Kendall wants the service to have an impact on the audience: “I hope that they see the common themes throughout the journey, not only that of the Magi, but perhaps they get a glimpse of their own journey through our music, whatever journey that may be.”
Senior Eli Spurgeon is part of the Gustavus Choir and acts as a liaison between the choir and their conductor, Dr. Dean. Spurgeon echoed Kendall’s emphasis on the collaboration involved:
“CinCC is an experience that brings the Gustavus community together in service and celebration. Being a participant in such a service and being able to give such an impactful experience to the attendees is profound.”
The Gustavus Symphony Orchestra is another integral part of Christmas in Christ Chapel. Junior Anika Smuts plays trumpet for the orchestra (as well as being one of three featured “herald trumpeters”).
This is her third year as a part of CinCC, and she describes the rehearsal process as “very extensive and tedious… we have very detailed rehearsals, and it is our responsibility to make sure we can play it to the best of our ability outside of rehearsal.”
Despite the immense amounts of work involved, Smuts is positive about the service’s impact. “What kind of struck me about the theme is how much something that seems relatively normal to us, like performing in CinCC, can make a huge impact on someone, hopefully multiple people in the audience. I don’t think the point is necessarily to draw emotion out of people, but it can help them to realize that there is something greater than the struggle they are dealing with,” Smuts said.
Justin Knoepfel is the conductor of the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra and has been involved in Christmas in Christ Chapel for four years as a conductor (and has performed as a soloist in the past). He explained that his role is “to ensure all the orchestral music is prepared in advance…
[The work] sort of starts as a trickle in spring/early summer, but then ends up as a raging torrent of creativity, time, and collaboration near the end. It’s pretty exhilarating.”
For Knoepfel, the months he spends preparing for the service are completely worth it: “I honestly love every aspect of the rehearsal process, which maybe makes me an outlier. How can you not enjoy crafting beauty? Hard work takes time and dedication…and it’s all worth it in the end.”
This year’s theme of journeying resonated deeply with Knoepfel. “Personally, I’ve always been fascinated by the Magi, those who came years later to worship Jesus… Clearly they knew something was up, which meant it was time to explore this amazing event, not only in the sky, but in my opinion one of the greatest moments in recorded history. We all have moments in our lives of journey, adoration, and dream, while [they] may not be as dramatic as the account in Matthew,” he explained.
Sarah Hauss, choreographer and Gustavus dance professor, created the third main aspect of Christmas in Christ Chapel: the dance. While she focused on choreography, Hauss has been working with the creative team through the entire process. “I love being a part of the whole collaborative process… it helps me understand it better and figure out how dance is integrated into the theme,” Hauss said. For instance, the theme prompted her choice to have dancers carry lights onstage. She put it this way: “You can be seeking and lost, but you can often find… that light within yourself.” Hauss and the rest of the creative team chose the theme of seeking hope very intentionally, “With our political climate, we tend to get divisive and lost and angry… the Magi, not really knowing where they were going, were just looking at the star, trusting that light and guidance… It’s a beautiful analogy for our time.”
Her choreographic process begins by creating “movement phrases that represent my ideas,” drawn from the music and poetry planned for this year’s service. As soon as the school year begins, students are incorporated into the work of choreography. Auditions are held the first week of classes in the fall, and dancers begin rehearsing the week after. After teaching her cast the “movement phrases” she wants to incorporate, Hauss likes to break the cast into groups and have them do some of the creative work.
Hauss likens this process to giving the students movement vocabulary to work with. She said, “It’s like if you handed someone a bunch of words and told them to create a poem.”
Freshman Kylee Loyson and Senior Kate Rooker are part of the Gustavus Dance Company.
As a first-time participant in CinCC, Loyson appreciates the community collaboration that is integral to the service. “ [I love] the teamwork and the dedication that everyone has put into this. As I watch, listen, and perform, I can clearly tell that individuals have spent hours of their time to ensure that the performance is lovely and unique,” She explained.
Rooker described CinCC as “an incredible experience to be involved in a culmination of all the arts, including dance, music, and visual arts. To dance to live music is an incredibly difficult task, while also being incredibly rewarding.”
When asked to summarize Christmas in Christ Chapel, Rooker said, “This year’s production is a journey through finding hope in unfamiliar places, where the answers are not always known, but the community of artists still comes together despite it all.”
She is also excited about the dancers’ use of props and lighting, “[it] really brings the story and themes to light.”
To see the full impact of the service’s creative choices, though, Rooker said, “You’ll have to watch to see the magic of it all.”