Friday, October 20th and Saturday, October 21st at 7pm

An imaginative outdoor installation of light, sound and movement by George Stadnik and Brian DeAngelo. “Dream Garden” comes to the Hiland Hall Garden in North Bennington on Friday, October 20^th and Saturday, the 21^st at 7pm. This immersive experience is free to the public and suitable for all ages.

This project is an evolution of “Dialogue Nordique”, the 2022 immersive after hours event, performed at the Bennington Museum. Under the direction of Stadnik and DeAngelo, approximately 20 more artists engage in Dream Garden. Performers include musicians involved in DeAngelo’s “Conduction” piece, visual imagery and lighting projection teams led by Stadnik and dance-movement artists. “This colossal collaboration comprises a talented cross section of local and regional professionals, emerging talent and students from Bennington College”, says VAE’s Artistic Director and co-conspirator, Matthew Perry.

Dream Garden creates a space and time, as a multi sensory, immersive, synaesthetic experience that triggers the imagination. Guests will discover new insights about life and time as a living garden transforms into a fantastical creative play space.  DeAngelo leads the conduction throughout the evening with a six piece ensemble of musicians. DeAngelo, responding to ambient sounds and sights, conducts the group with various gestures, coercing responses in a dialogue, entangling with the Garden as a soundtrack for the evening’s activities. Stadnik and the Lumia team create a live mix of visuals that both respond to DeAngelo’s orchestral energy and open new vistas for the music to evolve. In essence the entire space and time will become a realization of everyone’s collective imagination. Acting as a stage, the garden space will welcome guests to meander about as artists operate from stations projecting light, reflected imagery, moving shadows and live video captures. The greenhouse will contain a Lumia composition titled “Dream Machine”. Movement artists are another live dimension to the scene, interacting with projections, the music and guests throughout the space. The projected visual content includes imagery from local artists, historic photos from the property and the artists’ own original compositions. The important aspect of this performance is that everything is created as a live response to the inspired imaginations of the artists and guests.

Perry says, “Most performances we produce have the audience passively observing. Dream Garden invites the audience into the performance space, to take part, engage, as well as observe, at their own comfort level. The audience is invited to wander about, move with the music, with others or go warm up by the fire”. Please come dressed warmly.

Stadnik has composed Lumia for film, galleries, festivals, universities, planetariums and collaborations with other artists since the early 1970s. His work has taken him all over the country and abroad through exhibitions, installations and performances. Most recently he installed a piece in the Haunted Vermont Exhibit at the Bennington Museum.  Other recent installations include the Moshava Gallery, Cell Theatre and Plaxall Gallery in New York City, and site specific installations in Paisley Scotland and Soulton Long Barrow, Wales. George’s work is found in corporate and private collections including; several universities nationwide, the Museum of Modern Art Archive, Iota Center, Center for Visual Music, Optical Publishing Company and other corporate collections.

Brian DeAngleo is an active and adventurous educator, composer, and percussionist who resides in Bennington, Vermont. Brian is primarily a drummer/percussionist/composer whose creations are intended for an audience of thinkers, dreamers, imaginers; those who sense that there is something that occurs day to day, moment to moment, but do not affluently prosper in most man-made societies. Brian currently is teaching percussion at Bennington College. He has studied at Goddard College’s MFA-IA program, the New School’s BFA program in Jazz/Contemporary Music, ethnic studies in Senegal and Ghana, and the exploration of nonanthropogenic subcultural sounds.

Dream Garden is made possible by a grant from a very generous Vermont family.

Hiland Hall Garden is located at 3 Park Street, North Bennington, Vermont. For more information on the events, please contact Matthew Perry at matthewvae@comcast.net or 802-379-3763.