HEAVENLY YULE
Planetarium offers holiday laser shows, ‘Pink Freud’ live
Rock your way to Christmas Day with laser shows that will stimulate the eyes and ears.
The planetarium at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science will host a series of laser shows today through Dec. 21. Shows will include educational productions for children, live and recorded concerts, and holiday shows.
“There’s actually two … (children’s) shows. The one at 11 o’clock every day is called ‘Legends of the Night Sky: Orion,’ and that show is going to talk about the mythological legend of Orion and his battle with the constellation of Scorpius. And then at 3 o’clock every day, we’ve got a similar show that’s ‘Legends of the Night Sky: Perseus and Andromeda.’ That’s going to tell the love story between Perseus and Andromeda and the sea monster Cetus.”
The Holiday Laser Show 2 will be held at 4 p.m. today through Dec. 21. The show features a number of traditional holiday songs, including “Sleigh Ride,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Deck the Halls,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” “White Christmas,” “Feliz Navidad” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
“In addition to the laser graphics across the planetarium dome, we’ve also got our normal planetarium projectors and we’ve got sort of an all-dome visualizer — you know, like the screen visualizers that you can choreograph to the music on your computer,” said Jim Greenhouse, space science director at the museum. “We’ve got something like that, but it displays across the entire planetarium dome, so the laser images are really the star of the show but behind all that we also have some other abstract images being displayed on the planetarium projector.”
Tonight is the Family Laser Evening, which begins at 6 p.m. with the original Holiday Laser Show. It continues at 7 p.m. with “Laser Spirit,” featuring patriotic songs. At 8 p.m., “Laser Tribute” will showcase songs from artists who have passed away. On Saturday, Dec. 15, the Live Laser Concert: “Dark Side of the Moon Live By Pink Freud” will have performances at 6:30 and 7:45 p.m. The music continues with recorded laser concerts featuring the music of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Pink Floyd and others at 6, 7 and 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 16, and Dec. 21.
“Pink Freud is a local band, and they re-create Pink Floyd music,” Greenhouse said of the live laser concert. “They will be performing (the album) ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ live in the planetarium. There’s two shows, but they are both ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ and they are going to actually choreograph the music with the laser images that are going to be displayed on the planetarium dome above them.”