Last Thursday ballet fans Mick Jagger and Melanie Hamrick were seen celebrating Diana Vishneva and her new project,Sleeping Beauty Dreams, at the Fifth Avenue apartment of Susan Gutfreund.
New Yorkers gathered at The Guggenheim Museum to meet the artists creating Sleeping Beauty Dreams; a new production combining live theater, art, and technology. Diana Vishneva (principal dancer), Tobias Gremmler (digital artist), Thijs de Vlieger (composer) Edward Clug (choreographer), Bart Hess (costume design) and Laurent Fort (light artist).
Hosts for the evening included Desiree and Oliver Berggruen, David Hallberg, Theresa Khawly, Lesley Stahl, Allyson Tang and Thomas Widemann, and Dustin Yellin.
Diana Vishneva and Rem Khass By Presley Ann/PMC
Diana Vishneva and Tobias Gremmler by Brian William Waddell
Ed Ratnikov and George Petrushin by Presley Ann/PMC
Edward Clug, Bart Hess, Thijs de Vlieger, Laurent Fort, Andrei Severny by Brian William Waddell
Sleeping Beauty Dreams is very different than Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet and the Brothers Grimm Fairytale. It will explore the untold story of Princess Aurora’s 100 years of dreams. Combining real-time digital imaging technology, contemporary choreography, electronic music, and new media art Sleeping Beauty Dreams will show that the world of dreams is unique and doesn’t have to be confined by time or space. Diana began the evening with a big announcement; the role of her Prince will be danced by Marcelo Gomes. This will be their first time reunited on stage since leaving American Ballet Theatre. Tobias Gremmler explained the creation of digital avatars that will dance alongside the Prince and Princess, and how they’ll react to the dancers movements in real time. Costume designer Bart Hess said “My work is known for using materials that are not usually considered for fashion like silicon, latex, plastic, foil, and metals. Some of the costumes and installations I’ve designed in the past, employ completely not wearable materials like shaving foam or iron or like the ‘slime dress’ for Lady Gaga.” Thijs de Vliger, of the electronic musical trio NOISIA, described the original score he’s composed for this production.
Sylvia Hemingway attends Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Freddie Leiba attends Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Maria Maury Haseltine and Bill Haseltine attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Margo Morton Langenberg and Victoria Wyman attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Isabelle Harnoncourt Feigen, Allison Tang, Alexandra Altman attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Yanna Avis attends Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Felipe Escalante and Amy Fine Collins attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Desiree Berggruen and Olivier Berggruen attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Filmmaker Andrei Severny premiered two films about the artists; Bart Hess: Colliding Opposites and Tobias Gremmler: Digital Demons and showed his award winning film, Gravitation: Variation in Time and Space, featuring Diana Vishneva.
Guests included Yanna Avis, Delaney Buffet, Sharon Bush, Amy Fine Collins, Angela Goding, Judith Hoffman, Sleeping Beauty Dreams creative producer Rem Khass, Kristina Allegra Kingston, Margo Morton Langenberg, Guy Trebay, Adrienne and Gianluigi Vittadini, and Victoria Wyman.
Sleeping Beauty Dreams will premiere in Miami at The Adrienne Arch Center on December 7th and 8th and then comes to New York’s Beacon Theatre December 14th and 15th. Tickets can now be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com. For more information visit www.sbdart.com.
Ed Ratnikov, Mick Jagger, Diana Vishneva
Adrienne Vittadini attends Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Judith Hoffman, Roosey Khawley, Theresa Khawley
Dr. Hayama Brill
Christopher Scoates
Kelly Boyd, Steve Boyd and Melanie Waddell attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Nell Cusack and Haley Cusack attend Meet The Artists Creating “Sleeping Beauty Dreams” at Guggenheim Museum on September 13, 2018 in New York. (Photo by Presley Ann/PMC)
Youth America Grand Prix Founder Larissa Saveliev and Jeffrey Golladay
About The Films
Tobias Gremmler: Digital Demons
The German-born designer and 3D artist currently lives in Hong Kong and frequently works with the Chinese Opera. An early pioneer of digital media, motion graphics, and interface de-sign, Gremmler works with innovative tools to reimagine the possibilities for the human body. Often pushing the limits of what the latest technology can achieve, brands such as BMW, Apple, Phillips, Siemens, and Sony have all turned to Gremmler for his remarkable insights and artistic eye. His personal projects have spanned theatre composition, interactive instillations, lectures, and workshops. He has also authored multiple books, including cyberBionic and Grids for the Dynamic Image. For Sleeping Beauty Dreams, Gremmler created the demons and other digital characters. “Theatre needs to stay open to integrate technology that already impacts our society. The constant flexibility and transformation of theatre is a necessary pre-condition to establish a stage that reflects the current society.”
Bart Hess: Colliding Opposites
Dutch artist Bart Hess works in the most tactile and intuitive nature. Hess feels that our bodies are increasingly becoming a platform for sensitive and interactive technology. He exposed the intimate relationship materials have upon our skin. “It felt like a natural instinct for me to start working on the body. When I create a new design I always place it on my own skin even-though it originally was created as, for example, a flooring material. The fascinating thing about it for me is the combination of a skin and a material. By using a material on the body that is not the body’s own, but making it look like it could possibly be, I create a tension between the body and material.” Foamy, sweaty, blobular and molecular are the kinds of surfaces that Hess concocts. Flirting with a touch of the grotesque and the macabre, he explains that he tries “to find a balance between beauty and disgust or horror.” For Sleeping Beauty Dreams, Hess is creating costumes of the dancers.
Gravitation: Variation in Time and Space
A synergy of dance, cinema, and state-of-the-art technology. Directed by Andrei Severny and based on the original idea of the producer Rem Khass, Gravitation brings together Mauro Bigonzetti’s choreographic work, Diana Vishneva’s performance and Steve Romano’s Phan-tom Flex4K camera to deconstruct the language of dance and translate it into that of cinema. Through the calligraphy of black and white images, it explores the notions of time and space, movement and light. “We tried to show a ballerina’s movement like you have never seen it before. Powerful back lighting and slow motion focuses the viewers’ attention on the perfection of the lines and guides them into a striking visual world. The shots of the Moon and space from the NASA archives become metaphors of loneliness and the eternity of space, and make us reconsider the entire notion of time,” Severny comments on this story of creation, inner struggle and transformation.
