Guggenheim Museum welcomes in dance with site-specific installation

Fans of architecture and dance take note: The Guggenheim will play home to a site-specific dance installation in early September that audience members will view from the museum’s iconic spiral ramp. Falls the Shadow was conceived by American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Daniil Simkin and was choreographed by Alejandro Cerrudo for the Guggenheim’s Works & Process art series.

In the 30-minute show, just four dancers will move across the rotunda, as motion sensors capture their movements and create 3D visuals that will be projected back onto the rotunda, engulfing the audience. (The video below gives a better sense of what that will look like.) “The rotunda becomes almost like a player itself,” Simkin says. “It becomes a living, breathing environment—an integral part of the dance piece.”

Maria Grazia Chiuri, the artistic director of Dior, designed costumes for the performance.

“I imagined the costumes beginning with the body’s expressive role in dance: they’re skintight and above all support the subtle gestures, flexible poses, and sinuous movements,” Chiuri said of her design. “I was also thinking of shadows and how they’re an integral component in architecture, especially at the Guggenheim: a flat, reflective, seemingly passive surface can actually have its own contrasting identity. I think the costumes contribute to the architecture of the performance and are tools to define the body, together immersing and isolating it from the projections on the rotunda.”

The performance will take place on September 4 and 5, at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Tikets can be purchased here.

Update: The Guggenheim has released another video in the lead up to the performance. More mesmerizing visuals ahead.

• Energy and Power: Dancer Daniil Simkin’s Works & Process Performance in the Guggenheim Rotunda [Guggenheim]