Sleeping Beauty Dreams

The multimedia performance art event “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” opened its two-night run at the Beacon Theatre on December 14, 2018. Audiences gain insight into the dream world of Princess Aurora while she slept for 100 years. Avatar mapping projection technology integrates ballerina Diana Vishneva’s movements into large, scale digital animations that hover over the stage. Some seem like nightmarish science fiction creatures, others are flowing abstract filaments and floating point clouds. The costumes by Bart Hess underscore the futuristic feeling of the performance.

Avatar from Sleeping Beauty Dreams Photo Credit: sbdart.com

For some segments of the evening, Vishneva performs alone. During others, she is joined by Prince Peter (Marcelo Gomes), as well as a larger dance troupe. Electronic dance music, composed by Thijs de Vlieger of Noisia, provides a persistent rhythm throughout the performance and contributes to the otherworldly feeling of being lost in a place without a sense of place or time.

Sleeping Beauty Dreams brings a new lens to traditional ballet stories and has the potential to make dance more accessible to new audiences thanks to the fusion with technology and EDM. The science-fiction and AI-inspired performance abolishes the cozy fairy tale connotations associated with Sleeping Beauty and replaces them with bewildering sights and sounds that, like dreams, can be hard to make sense of immediately.

Sleeping Beauty Dreams will have a second performance on December 15, 2018 at the Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, New York, NY. More information and tickets are available at http://www.sbdart.com