I lie down. I pull the sleep mask over my eyes and place the headphones over my ears. Then I drift, once again, into Sweet Dreams.
Shine On Collective presented the second part of their Sweet Dreams series, Sweet Dreams: Just a Dream, at this year’s Midsummer Scream. The show acted both as an entry point into the series for newcomers, while building on themes established in The Prologue: choice, love, and expectations.
Rose, still trapped in dreams, explains her situation to those who have fallen asleep. She highlights the treatment of women in the fairy tales we tell; why is it that women are always the ones who have been cursed? That question adds to the others Rose considered and left us with in The Prologue; they are sure to factor into just how Part Three unfolds.
Proving their mastery of small spaces once again, Shine On paired physical elements with audio to complete draw you into the experience. Where The Prologue took place entirely in a moving truck, Just a Dream made use of a small tent on a convention floor. Those who heard Rose’s dream may have felt a weight on their chest when she mentioned feeling trapped, something warm on their throat as she spoke of a dragon’s breath, a prick on their finger to wake them from sleep. While the moments that emulate what happens in the dream world in the real world are small, they helped add a weight to the show – a way to keep from forgetting Rose’s dream once I had awoken. That’s not all I was left with though: a phone number given out at the end of the show left me questioning just whose dream Rose is trapped in.
Sweet Dreams: Part Three will run periodically in October and November in the Los Angeles area. Click here if you’d like to read about Part 1 of Sweet Dreams: The Prologue.
