The Adelaide Planetarium is a thirty seat dome in the Mawson Lakes campus of the Adelaide University. Normally used for demonstrating the movements of our celestial system, tonight the idea is to be fully immersed in a sound and light experience.
The team behind the show, Sacred Resonance have been presenting sound and light experiences for 16 years. They were also behind the Celestial Garden performance in the Botanic Gardens.
Sacred Resonance, Darren Curtis (BA.Mus.Tech, ADL) & Bradley Pitt, work as artists and educators who have been composing, creating live sound baths, producing art installations and performing sacred music across Australia and overseas for the last 21 years.
Their work includes immersive experiences of sacred art & music and education through future science which aims to help facilitate an interconnectedness for the mind-body-spirit. Their speciality also includes the latest discoveries in musicology, archaeoacoustics (acoustics in temples and pyramids), full dome visual immersive experiences and mind-body sound entrainment.
A recent upgrade to the projector in the Planetarium meant that the idea of using mandalas with music could be realised. Artist Aya created the light show to accompany the musical experience.
The audience are seated in reclining chairs around the central projector and a night sky from the southern pole is projected on the domed ceiling to give everyone a chance to acclimatise their eyes. The music is a mixture of pre-recorded soundtrack with additional elements from flutes and quartz singing bowls. A gentle sound soon becomes awash with energy while the mandalas evolve, grow and surround the audience.
One moment it feels as though we are hurtling through the vastness of space, the next we are in a sacred temple.
Gradually we are bought back to earth, the lights come back on and slowly the audience sits back upright. The goal of the immersive sound bath is to free the mind of extraneous clutter and thoughts, and after a few minutes it felt calm and refreshing. It really is a meditation for the soul.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Starwheels is a full dome immersive experience at the Adelaide Planetarium
Performance is part of the Adelaide Fringe until March 19th – tickets and information here.
