Acrobatic 'Alice in Wonderland'-inspired ballet coming to Detroit's Music Hall
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An acrobatic adventure down the rabbit hole awaits audiences when dance company MOMIX presents a dynamic interpretation of “Alice in Wonderland” on Sunday, May 29 at Music Hall Detroit.
There will be one performance only, a 3 p.m. matinee.
Simply titled “Alice,” the reinvention of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale blends dance with illusion, acrobatics and projections to plunge viewers into the experience. Familiar characters like the caterpillar, white rabbit and the mad Queen of Hearts appear, as well as spiders, dancing lobsters and other surprises.
Connecticut-based MOMIX was founded in 1981 by choreographer Moses Pendleton.
“The ‘Alice’ books are full of imagery; MOMIX is a highly visual kind of theater,” Pendleton said. “New technologies have made it possible for me to immerse you in imagery in every scene.
“We’ve always tried to do something new when we create a new show. In ‘Alice,’ we’re using projections to merge the physical dancers with images of the dancers in real time, using A.I. assisted lighting. We’re looking for a balance between the virtual and the physical. Both sides of the mirror.”
Pendleton compared some of the show’s images to the work of surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and illustrator John Tenniel, whose drawings were featured in the original 1865 “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
“In this show,” he said, “I use Alice’s adventures as inspiration, but I don’t try to recreate them. I see Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ books as an invitation to invent, to dream, to alter the way we perceive the world. I like to work by multiplication, so I have not one but four Alices, and a couple of Carrolls. But they don’t play roles as in a play, they’re more like figures in a dream that can take various shapes and forms and sometimes combine in strange ways.”
Tickets for "Alice" begin at $30 and can be purchased at musichall.org.
'Alice'
3 p.m. Sun.
Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts
350 Madison Ave., Detroit
Tickets start at $30
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Alice in Wonderland'-inspired ballet coming to Detroit
