Designed for the San Francisco Ballet’s Sensorium, Reflected Ceiling is a site-specific architectural installation that interacts with the Beaux-Arts barrel vault of the War Memorial Opera House. The project offers a contemporary intervention that respects the site’s historic volume while creating an immersive sensory experience for one of the world’s leading dance companies.
At Sensorium, an event directed by artist James Buckhouse to expand the understanding of dance through a multitude of forms, the Opera House’s gilded, coffered entrance hall becomes the setting for interactive installations. “Reflection and Line,” the theme of the 2017 event, generated ABA’s suspended work, which fills the hall while leaving the floor clear for the movement of 3,000 ticket-holders.
Here, a series of 158 reflective aluminized mylar strips of calibrated, graduated lengths are draped from one side of the room’s cornice line to the other. This cornice acts as a line of inflection, with the draped series of strips creating a materialized reflection of the ceiling’s barrel vault. The streamer-like material simultaneously speaks to the party-like atmosphere of the event, while its reflection allows the large-scale form to appear light and effervescent in the space.
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