Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber, a performance for a sleeping audience, was produced by Collapsable Giraffe and 3-Legged Dog and presented by Times Square Arts in partnership with Allied Partners and Brickman Real Estate.

With this literal dream play, the audience was encouraged to experience the work while falling in and out of sleep. This durational performance installation invited the audience to take an immersive journey through Cao Xueqin's 18th century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, an epic love story between a stone and a flower, framed by a dizzying series of metaphysical dreams.

The set, video, sound, and lighting design of Dream of the Red Chamber transformed the vast basement space of the iconic Brill Building into an environment that advocated and facilitated sleep. The audience could choose to experience the work while lying and/or sleeping in one of the many beds that filled the basement or to sit and watch from a more traditional chair, as the performers traveled through the space and the story unfolded.