Skylight One Hanson

How do you astound an audience who has literally seen it all?

The Patrons of the Brooklyn Academy of Music are true aficionados.

The challenge of this event was to transport 500 theatergoers from the world of “nouveau cirque master” James Thiérrée’s Raoul into a world created by another master…

Bella Meyer and her team at Fleurs Bella worked with the events team at BAM to enable guests to relive the dark dream of a surrealist performance after exiting the theater.  Guided through the street by lanterns, guests stepped back into a fantastical dreamscape created at Skylight One Hanson.

How does a dinner recreate such inspirational surrealist theater?   A true artist is required.

Bella’s background could not be more perfect to rise to the challenge of interpreting the works of Thiérrée, who happens to be the grandson of Charlie Chaplin.  As the progeny of a great artist herself (Marc Chagall), Bella specializes in creating whimsical works of theater in her event designs.

Challenged by a desire to respect the performance without being too literal and to take something existential and make it festive, Bella decided to interpret Thiérrée’s world by contrasting the fragility with the fortitude of the human condition.

Translating metaphysical ideas into something celebratory is no easy task.

In the performance, the central structure slowly falls away.  It is fragile and like humanity (as interpreted by Bella), it can be unsound. The welcoming centerpiece arrived as a bundle of bamboo poles and odds and ends that came together to recreate the structural focal point on stage at BAM.  Bella herself donned a toolbelt, climbing up and down ladders and gracefully balancing on ledges to construct her vision.

The world is an enigma, shape-shifting and changing.  It can be delicate and it can be strong, but all of it is our human reality.  As Thiérrée travels through a continually shifting reality, Bella takes the guests on a similarly haphazard journey.

Striking a contrast between the fortitude inherent in the bank’s grand symmetry, with fragile and ephemeral structures scattered throughout the venue, guests were, in Bella’s words:

“Taken on their own quest to find the beautiful bloom.  Something lush and quietly beautiful.  There were structures that only a few people saw.”

Mirrors were randomly placed so that guests, embarking on the journey, would suddenly be confronted with an image of themselves amongst it all.

Each centerpiece was completely different, telling its own story.  In all Bella’s events, “no two centerpieces can be alike because we’re all different.”

“It’s a dream.  Is it a bad dream or a good dream?  I wanted to transpose the monumental historic building of Skylight One Hanson and impose upon it fragile and ephemeral structures.  It’s a building that lends itself to every human aspect.  How to build on your human history.”

This shared human history was Bella’s blank canvas.

Seasonal French Menu by Great Performances

Lighting Design by Richard Tatum at L & M Sound & Lighting

Event Production by Glenn Stiskal & Margaret Breed at BAM

Photography by Allan Zepeda