NOW PLAYING: deiSogni: Pride
Warhol meets Dante Alghieri in DTLA in a participatory queer reimagining of the Divine Comedy
Hell. It’s everywhere these days, and when that’s the case, it’s best to seek a map. No map to Hell is more well-known than Dante’s, but between you and me, it might just be a few centuries out of date.
Which is where deiSogni: Pride comes in.
The first part of a planned series that reimagines the Divine Comedy as a series of episodes, each exploring one of the seven deadly sins. “Drink, Disco, Dream” is one of the tag lines if you want to get a handle on the tone.
We sought out the advice of deiSogni’s own Virgil in the form of director Andrew Niklas Curtis, who is summoning the event to the Melt Warehouse in DTLA this week on Thursday and Friday night.
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NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?
Andrew Niklas Curtis: “deiSogni” (translates from italian to “of dreams”) is a queer reimagining of Dante’s Divine Comedy. deiSogni is a serialized immersive experience with each “episode” focusing on one of the 7 deadly sins. Participants become a direct collaborator with the production by submitting their dreams to potentially be turned into an immersive art installation, film, character, etc. Upon purchasing a ticket or engaging with the dream submission, participants are guided by “Virgil” , a digitally reimagined version of the Roman Poet. Here Virgil will guide guests into the first circle of Purgatory/Hell, which focuses on the sin of Pride.
NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?
ANC: The inspiration came from a 2 year journey living in Florence Italy. Here director Andrew Niklas Curtis began to study the texts of Dante Alghieri, immersed himself in the renaissance works of Caravaggio, and founded an art studio within a 17th century cemetery. The experiences working with artists in Italy helped shape the narrative art direction behind deiSogni. The experience was developed with Renaissance influenced visual artists Ventiko, Boli Tashi (Simon Zhu), Leo, and Elise Jonke.
NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?
ANC: The goal with this experience is to not just have the audience become a participant, but a collaborator. Their submitted dreams will help shape future iterations across the 7 deadly sins.
NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?
ANC: Through collaborating with the installation artists, the actors, and the musicians we began to see common threads within our dreams, that’s where we transitioned the vision of the project from being generated within our production team to allow it to be generated by the collective. We also discovered the installations the artists were creating allowed for the audience to participate and influence the work being created. Which leads to the question…who actually is the artist?
NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?
ANC: If Studio 54 and Warhol’s Factory found the works of Dante Alghieri, and began staging them to the tunes of Glitterbox, we want you to find your own ego and destroy it. But I’d also say study up on the myth of Narcissus, it would suck to repeat his fate.
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