Lumonics Immersed Takes Its Light Sculpture Experience to Boulder

Entering a performance at Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery is like stepping through a looking glass and into a sci-fi wonderland. The gallery's Lumonics Immersed installation, which won a 2023 Best of Denver award for Best Long-Running Immersive Experience, was originally created by the late Dorothy and Mel Tanner, pioneering light artists whose singular style fuses elements of light, music and sculpture to produce captivating and engrossing experiences for the audience.

"After Dorothy passed [in 2020], we thought it would be great to continue the show as a tribute to our founders and honor their miraculous sculptures," says Barry Raphael, Lumonics archivist and publicist. "Over the years, a lot of the pieces have been reworked, but it's cool that the Tanners' Lumonics have been able to find new life. They still pop, and the spectacle of pieces draw you in. Their twinkling nature is just deeply captivating. Initially, we had just planned to continue hosting events and holding exhibitions, like we had done at Meow Wolf and other local art galleries, but to my delight, Lumonics has developed further."

For the first time in the installation's history, it will tour to Boulder as part of the gallery's effort to broaden its reach and connect with new audiences. On Friday, August 11, and Saturday, August 12, the Lumonics team will take over the Dairy Arts Center's Carsen Theater to host three performances of Lumonics Immersed.

Before the special presentation in Boulder, a brief documentary about the background, sources of inspiration and creative process of Lumonics will be screened. Created by Lumonics creative director Marc Billard, the ten-minute video offers a deeper understanding of the artists’ vision and their journey in developing their light sculptures, or Lumonics. After the video, Lumonics Immersed will present those sculptures, which light up to music and video effects controlled by Billard. The immersive experience, which happens at the Denver gallery on Saturdays at 8 p.m., is meant to be a multi-sensory excursion into the layers of consciousness.

"Immersive experiences have become very popular in recent years, but Dorothy and Mel have been taking people on these types of journeys since the ’60s," Raphael notes. "Over the years we've done a lot of cool things, but we've never really done anything like this tour to Boulder before. We've had museum exhibits with projections going, but it wasn't an actual performance where we activated the light sculptures using lighting effects, sound and projections. Transporting the pieces from the studio to Boulder will be a bit tricky, but it's fun that we're still finding new ways to challenge ourselves."
Although the studio has never toured its show, the group has had experience transporting its light sculptures across the nation. Since the Tanners began to combine light and sculpture around 1966, Lumonics has had studio spaces in Miami (where the Tanners began the performances in 1969 in their converted studio space, which they called the Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre), San Diego, Bangor, Maine, Boston, Fort Lauderdale and Denver, where it is currently based at 800 East 73rd Avenue.

When Mel passed away in 1993, Dorothy and the Lumonics team continued to host immersive performances in his honor. However, when the collective moved to Denver in 2008, there was initially some hesitation about continuing the shows. "Dorothy and Marc were reluctant to continue the show when we first opened this venue because it was much smaller than we were used to," Raphael explains. They "felt that it was not possible to provide the same level of experience for people that we were used to providing; we did not have the mezzanine or the large screen that we were used to, so we focused on other things for a while."

The Lumonics Light and Sound Gallery was primarily supported by concerts and gallery tours, as well as placement of the sculptures in art exhibits around town and teaching students about the fundamentals of light sculpture at the Lumonics School of Light Art, which opened in 2018, the same year Dorothy received the Denver Mayor's Award for Innovation in the Arts. The remaining Lumonics team members — Raphael, Billard and Barbara Billard, the gallery's technical assistant — started looking for ways to carry on the performances in Dorothy's honor after she passed away in July 2020 at age 97.

"I'm so proud of how we've evolved the gallery space in Denver into Lumonics Immersed," says Raphael. "Marc is constantly looking for better ways to control the room and is still producing new music and a video for the piece. We are constantly coming up with new ideas to elevate the form."
Lumonics' special presentation at the Dairy Arts Center is part of the studio's endeavor to introduce Boulder residents to its shimmering light sculptures. "I reached out to Drew Austin [the Dairy's visual arts curator], who works on these kinds of projects for the center," says Raphael. "Drew came to the studio and, after watching some of the show, he said that they have a number of spaces available that he thought we'd be perfect for. He wanted to speak with his team at the Dairy Arts Center to see what they thought, and then they came up with the idea for us to perform in the Carsen Theater. That space is very different from our location in Denver. The sound system is not as extensive as at our Denver studio, but they're bringing in an extra subwoofer that they have to the space so that we can create our signature soundscape in the theater."

As for what pieces the studio will bring to Boulder, that all depends on what will be most efficient. "All decisions about artwork are being made based on practicality," says Raphael. "We are not bringing some of the really bulky pieces, but I think people will be impressed with how the light sculptures look on the Carsen's stage."

Lumonics Immersed at the Dairy Arts Center is the perfect introduction to the Tanners' unique art form in one of Boulder's largest multi-disciplinary arts centers.

"This is an opportunity to see one of the longest-running light art-studios and one of the first immersive experiences in Boulder," says Raphael. "You get a great overview of Dorothy and Mel with the documentary, followed by the classic Lumonics light and sound orchestra. And then come to the source in Denver after seeing this show over in Boulder. We're looking to energize them and stimulate people's creativity, which was always the original vision of Dorothy and Mel; they wanted to create a place for people to get beyond themselves."

Lumonics Immersed, 8 p.m. Friday, August 11, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, August 12, Carsen Theater, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder. Tickets are $17-$20. Find more information at lumonics.net.