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Mark Brennan
Doerries, Artistic Director
DREAMING
IN DARKNESS
FRIDAY & SATURDAY DECEMBER 12 &
13, 2008
7:30PM - IU ART MUSEUM - PLAZA
Reception to
follow performance
Music
Direction - Mark Brennan Doerries
Lighting Design
- Sean Michael Smallman
Sponsered by the Indiana University
Art Museum
Multi-sensory performance art, a
continually evolving genre,
aims to
stimulate audiences’ eyes, ears, and emotions to create
penetrating and
intense new compositions and performances.
Dreaming
in Darkness merges musical,
theatrical and visual
narratives into
a single performance of light and sound that
interweave
creating powerful images of the transformative
forces of
darkness and color.
Dreaming
in Darkness’ music paints
rich sonorous descriptions
of the
enveloping, comforting and mystic elements of the night.
It is at dusk
and evening that we drop many of our fears; we feel
freer to look
one another in the eyes, speak loving and difficult
truths, end old
relationships and build new paths. Darkness is not
an abyss,
devoid of light and substance, but rather an intense emotion,
a psychological
location, and a time of day that releases new colors,
shadows and
images of the natural world not visible to us beneath
the sun’s
rays. Light Totem, a work of art in its own right, has
illuminated the
Indiana University campus for the past year and
has become part
of the evening landscape. Its use in Dreaming
in Darkness not only lights
the night terrain, it conjures and depicts
the foreboding
and consoling narrative each musical depiction of
evening
unfurls.
Immersed in
this sonic and visual world, we watch the struggles
and successes
of a couple learning to look, listen, condemn and
embrace under
the cover of darkness; a relationship that comes to
life only under
the protection of twilight. But, will what begins in
darkness
continue into light? The powers and mysteries of darkness
are at once
destructive and forgiving; Dreaming
in Darkness explores
our innermost
desires to connect to others amidst nightfall’s vivid pallet.
