Bring a pillow for special concert to relax, recharge
If you fall asleep during the upcoming Re:Charge concert, organizers won’t mind. Refreshing the spirit, however that happens, is the whole point.
Orlando’s Creative City Project and Timucua Arts Foundation have teamed to present Re:Charge, which is of note for several reasons. The concert is one of the first big live-music events to take place in a theater in months. And it’s one of the first public shows at Harriett’s Orlando Ballet Centre.
Audience members, though, are most likely to notice that their tickets instruct them to bring a blanket, mat and pillow so they can recline in their floorspace.
That’s right, floorspace.
Instead of taking a seat, 72 audience members will be assigned an 8-foot-by-8-foot area for the 75-minute concert and encouraged to stretch out.
“This was an idea we had talked about for a while — a concert where people could relax,” said Cole NeSmith, founder of Creative City Project. “It just became increasingly relevant. The timing was just right.”
The timing also means COVID-19 precautions will be in place. Concertgoers will have their temperatures checked upon arrival and be asked to sanitize their hands. Marked aisles will keep people distanced until they reach their designated resting spot. Masks will be required when arriving and in common areas, but may be removed while listeners recline in their personal space.
“We felt safe knowing the design of the experience itself keeps people separated,” NeSmith said.
Response has been good, NeSmith said. With just a few tickets remaining for the show, at 7:30 p.m. July 18, a second performance was added at 9:30 that night. Find tickets, $35, at creativecityproject.com/ recharge.
As for the music, the musicians will play while maintaining their own carefully choreographed social distancing. Musical director Christopher Belt said the mixture of works — some familiar, some not — were carefully chosen to work together.
“Each piece on this program has a different emotion or mood, but there is definitely a line connecting them,” said Belt, executive director of Timucua Arts Foundation. “You have these almost ambient, spatialized works where the musicians surround the audience and bathe them in sound, and these more emotional solo and duo pieces exploring different, hopefully pleasant emotions.”
He thinks people will find much to like in works that might be new to them.
“Whether it’s the beauty of stillness in Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ or the tenderness of Sam Rivers’ ‘Beatrice,’ or the optimism of the prelude from Bach’s first cello suite, every piece was chosen to reflect a little bit of the good stuff we really need to feel right now,” he said.
Ambient lighting will complement the music — “We’re going to light it in a reflective way, not bright,” NeSmith said. Concertgoers at the earlier show also will see the sun set over Lake Formosa. Is all this relaxation going to make people conk out on their pillows?
“Personally, I would love to fall asleep during this. Aren’t we all a little unrested?” NeSmith said. “I welcome the sleepers… as long as they don’t snore.”