HQ Review: Leverage Dance Theater’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes

A haunted house turned immersive dance theater thrill ride, Leverage Dance Theater’s third installment of Nightmares and Dreamscapes serves as a fitting grand finale for both their 2024 production season and the Halloween season at large. Filled with classic horror tropes from ghoulish twins to haunted dolls (and ample screams), the production showcases what Leverage has become best known for - bringing meticulously crafted immersive dance experiences to unconventional spaces. Presented at 2715 Cherokee Street, a near blank slate of a building located steps away from The Luminary, Nightmares and Dreamscapes journeys the audience through every inch of the building’s chilling crevices.

An abrupt blackout and the haunting sounds of whispers and pounding feet coming from every direction herald in the start of the nightmare. As the lights stutter back on, our protagonist-of-sorts is revealed laying in a bed surrounded by a multi-generational ensemble of dancers adourned in white with gaunt faces. The dancer in the bed writhes around restlessly before awaking with a shattering scream. The ghoulish apparitions sweep her through the space, off the bed, and into the air. Choreographed by associate director R Vance Baldwin, this opening scene provides exposition in a way that feels like a musical theater production, jumping through tableaus filled with movements and tropes one would expect out of a haunted attraction. Dancers on the perimeter of the space address the audience directly, posing with taloned fingers and crooked limbs and crawling along the floor. The hyper-theatricality of this scene reaches its height with the dramatic reveal of the shadow man, appearing out of the literal shadows of the bed and coming to full form in a black trench coat and wide-brimmed hat before dragging the dreamer down the stairs.

Coaxed by the ghoulish ensemble with shuddering arms and piercing glares, the audience makes their way into the stairwell, where they are halted by a figure roped to a pole at the base of the stairs. This next scene, a solo titled “Feral” choreographed and performed by Paige Van Nest, rips the audience out of the flashy world they left upstairs and sinks its teeth into a more experimental and contemplative take on what a haunted dance experience can be. Paige’s arms appear one by one from behind the pillar, distorting and snaking rapidly, before helping her climb up the walls in various impressive feats of strength. There is an animalistic nature to her movements, and a clear familiarity with every inch of her confined space as she hovers above the audience’s heads. The dreamer from earlier watches with anxious, bulging eyes from a window behind the stairs. There is a curious blend of agitated ennui in the air as Van Nest’s creature moves with confidence through the space as if trapped in that stairwell for centuries, before recoiling restlessly in fear at the return of the shadow man.

With a menacing finger, the shadow man beckons the audience through the the basement, cementing his role as the puppeteer of this nightmare. There is an eerie, liminality to the basement, an expansive white room with low ceilings held up by four pillars. The walls glow with distorted waves from a nearby projector as five dancers ebb and flow through a series of gestures and arabesques in succession to one another like waves falling along a shore. “Water,” choreographed by both Van Nest and Baldwin, sinks the audience briefly out of the nightmares and into the promised dreamscapes with its mesmerizing, calming movement patterns. The dreamer, now clad in a colorful dress, splashes around curiously and joyously in the waves, followed shortly by the rest of the ensemble. This brief moment of rapture is quelled as the shadow man returns, leaving the dancers drowning and choking before dragging the dreamer through a door by an invisible leash.

Loud banging, screams, and cries for help draw the audience through a hallway before settling into seats for “Structural Possibility” by artistic director Diana Barrios, a solo performed in tandem by Ruth Tichy and Paige Van Nest. Held up by a series of stools and a built-in shelving unit, the dancers move slowly in synch exploring the boundaries of their space while avoiding ever touching the floor. The dancers move less with fear and more out of a timid curiosity, unsure of the situation they have found themselves in - much like in a dream whose complex rules keep evolving the more you explore. They lean through different postures, reach and rearrange the stools they are standing on, and scan through their surrounding before finally meeting in the middle of their split worlds to build a bridge of stools, like one giant game of floor-is-lava. This scene and the comedic interludes that follow serve as a welcome and well-timed breath of surrealism, reminding of the illogical nature of dreams and the humor that we find in that absurdity once we’ve awoken.

At the end of the next hall, a short scene featuring three of the production’s student performers from Dance Center of Kirkwood and Taylor’s Academy of Dance redirects the tone of the show back into a more Hollywood take on horror with nods to halloween classics like The Shining and Child’s Play. It is here where the production takes its most enticing turn, showcasing Leverage’s visionary and artful hand for immersive theater design. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel come to life, the audience is urged to find their way into one of six rooms to observe a series of horror vignettes in any order they choose. One room, “Heartbreak” by Van Nest, explores the crooked pain of a grieving, knife-wielding bride through a butoh-esque stillness. Another, “Who’s First” by Baldwin, features three children screaming and frenetically slamming themselves against the walls of their room, begging against the impending return of the shadow man. Yet another, “Paranormal” by assistant director Nicole Halama, offers a short yet standout performance of physicality as Halama rolls and drags her body through the room as if controlled by an outside force. While each room pulls from different nightmarish tropes, they are connected by the thread of observation. At various points throughout each dance, the performers make a point to stare deeply, harshly, hauntingly into the eyes of the audience. There is something radically chilling about being observed so intimately, and it brings with it the unsettling realisation of the audience’s own role as observers in this nightmarish dreamscape.

The lines between who is watching whom are blurred further in the finale, “Dreams or Reality” choreographed by Keli Hermes. Viewers guide themselves into mismatched stools and chairs placed in the center of a space previously occupied by performers - creating an eerie sense of being on display. Returning to their ghoulish white dresses, the dancers parade the bed around the space, followed far behind by the shadowman, before quickly wrenching the audience back out of their chairs and up against the walls in a final, full-force act of immersion for the audience. A reprise of sleepless writhing, menacing stares, and screams to rival Shelley Duvall bring the anthological nightmare to a whirring conclusion.

With such a wide spectrum of ways to define and approach dance theater between its two namesake genres, it is often difficult to satisfy everyone’s taste and expectations. Yet Leverage’s model of site-specific programs with a diverse range of artistic voices routinely manages to accomplish just that. From commercialized theatrics to contemplative modern dance, peppered with occasional moments of athleticism and overflowing with embodied expression, Leverage’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes takes the audience on a journey not just through a masterfully crafted haunted house, but through the full continuum of what immersive dance theater can be.