Eisemann Edge: STORY BALLET

STORYBALLET Sunday // Bank of America Theatre GenAdm

STORY BALLET is a surreal dance theater quintet re-interpolating Hector Berlioz’s historic 1830 composition, Symphonie Fantastique. This re-contextualization queers the original tale into an 75-minute contemporary performance exploring the intersection of mental health de-stigmatization and perception. The work engages technology to externalize the internal experience of the lived realities of performers navigating fragmentation, physical labor, and identity.

Berlioz’s original narrative objectifies “the/a woman” as an obsession that haunts him throughout the program music’s narrative. STORY BALLET subverts this concept, redefining the symphony’s story as “dancing with the ghost of one’s self” and uses the symphony’s five movements as dramaturgical frameworks for examination. The cast of five embodies different facets of the central character, each grappling with their own obsessions and past selves. Noir lighting, holographic projections akin to 1800’s Pepper’s Ghost illusions, motion capture, sculptural laser walls and live sound sampling reinforce the performers’ descent into a phantasmagoric nightmare.