Washington Ballet is bringing the world premiere of Sleepy Hollow to Kennedy Center next month and D.C.-based Design Army, longtime creative collaborators of The Washington Ballet, and videographer Dean Alexander “filmed a gorgeous, haunting, and wonderfully weird preview video for the production at the National Arboretum,” reported brightestyoungthings.com.
According to the brightestyoungthings.com post, Design Army’s Pum Lefebure said that usually the Ballet shoots a lot of dance videos in the studio, or uses a replay of the on-stage production, “but when we collaborated with them before on the Wonderland book, we took the dancers out on the street to dance in different D.C. settings, both known and unknown. However, that was purely photography — I don’t think they’ve done a video like this. It’s pretty unusual — we managed to make a ballet movie that doesn’t really have dancing in it.
“We feel like Sleepy Hollow is beyond just dance — it’s art. The production itself is art in all its forms. The stage and scenery pulls from the Hudson River School; the costumes are a more fashion-oriented twist on traditional colonial style. Everything has a little bit of historical reference with a modern spin, and we felt like the video production should have that element, too. Our job is to create mystery, allure, and — ultimately — a desire to see the show.”
The Washington Ballet’s Sleepy Hollow, which debuts on Feb. 18, at The Kennedy Center, reimagines the classic American ghost story, interwoven with the real horrors of the infamous Salem witch trials. “Design Army’s creative direction for promoting this atmospheric production includes drone footage, masterful cinematography, and superb typographic treatments across editorial, video, and advertising materials that intensifies the lush language of the ballet into an immersive sensory experience,” stated an introduction to the video.
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