UNDER THE VAULTED SKY | LIQUID GOLD IS THE AIR
Created for Milton Keynes International Festival, Under the Vaulted Sky was a large-scale outdoor promenade performance.
Award winning choreographer Rosemary brought together professional and apprentice dancers, musicians and volunteer participants from across the region.
Audience quotes:
"I think Rosemary Lee has created something quite extraordinary and moving. She is as much a visual artist as a wonderful choreographer."
"It was a truly magical, unforgettable, deeply moving experience. It was a profound response to an extraordinary, beautiful setting, which you enhanced with such subtle, sensitive, finely nuanced and detailed interventions."
Created by: Rosemary Lee
Performed by: A cast of 100 dancers, apprentices and volunteers
Composer: Terry Mann
Set and Costume Design: Louise Belson
Production Manager: Barbra Egervary
Site Manager: Simon Byford
Costume and Wardrobe Supervisor: Sophie Bellin Hansen
Wardrobe Assistant: Alison Alexander
Costume Makers: Melanie Woolven, Berit Laageide Griffin, Melissa Burton, Helen Gardner, Caroline Akselson, Alice Palace, Elizabeth Barker, Lucy Mintra Reeves.
Set and Prop Supervisor: Kasper Hansen
Set and Prop Assistant: Petra Hjortsberg
Prop Maker: Sasha Mani
Film Maker: Roswitha Chesher
This site specific performance involved more than a hundred performers aged 7 to 80 years old and was performed outdoors nine times over three days. Rosemary Lee and film maker Roswitha Chesher shot the dance film Liquid Gold is the Air during and after the performance.
We worked with the designer Louise Belson to budget, plan and execute the production of the design. We were involved throughout the rehearsal period and during the run of the show to oversee the wardrobe and the installations of the set and props. We had to factor into the finishing of costumes and set both the requirements of the film and the live performance.
The scale of this project required us to demonstrate competence and efficiency in organizing the work and take leadership of a skilled workforce. The logistic of producing 150 costumes made to measure, then fitted or gilding the hands of the 100 performers in 15 minutes and rigging set elements from trees in a public park were some of the exciting challenges we undertook. The journey of the audience and the logistics behind the performance had to take into consideration elderly, children and disabled as well as the changing weather conditions.
