A Grimm Night is a wonderful, disorienting, ethereal evening of immersive dance theatre

A Grimm Night

Directed and choreographed by Julia Cratchley. At the Great Hall, 1087 Queen St. W., through April 9. transcendanceproject.com

An Evil Queen with blue cat eyes reads my palm and predicts a nasty intersection of love and death in my future, then banishes me from their lair with a haughty wave.

Cinderella and Prince Charming dance a gorgeous duet around a gothic ballroom as her evil stepmother and stepsisters seethe on the sidelines.

Descending a steep staircase, I discover a beautiful garden where a trio of faeries revives a pretty girl in a pink and white dress from an enchanted slumber. The college students attending the show around me are so stimulated by what they’re seeing some are literally vibrating.

Welcome to the wonderful, disorienting world of immersive site-specific dance theatre, currently materialized here in Toronto in this ambitious and enjoyable production from local company Transcen|Dance Project.

The company best known worldwide for these sorts of spectacles is the U.K.-based Punchdrunk and Transcen|Dance artistic director Julia Cratchley, who directs and choreographs “A Grimm Night,” credits Punchdrunk’s long-running New York hit “Sleep No More” as a major inspiration.

Those influences are everywhere apparent, from the construction of the show as a series of narratives that audience members wearing half-masks follow and jump between at will, to the transformation of the venue (the Great Hall on Queen West) into an immersive performance environment through intricate set design (by Jennifer Goodman), to the placement of bars around the space so spectators can drink adult beverages throughout the show.

The distinct signature of this piece is Cratchley’s excellent, balletic choreography, which the dozen dancers execute skilfully and elegantly.

Nearly every scene involves dance-led storytelling featuring dramatic lifts, holds and spins. The chemistry and trust between the performers is remarkable. Owen Belton’s dramatic score does great work in setting tone and guiding the action, as does Goodman and Cratchley’s suitably moody lighting design.

Part of the enjoyment of such immersive pieces is the push-and-pull between being drawn into characters and relationships, and then snapping out to wonder how they get from one location to another so quickly. “A Grimm Night” is a bravura feat of production and stage management across the board.

The storylines are loosely drawn from Grimm’s fairy tales, most recognizably “Cinderella” and “Snow White.” Kelly Shaw and Tyler Gledhill are handsomely matched as Cinderella and Prince Charming, with senior ballet star Evelyn Hart in harrowingly convincing form as the evil stepmother Agatha (Sarah Murphy-Dyson plays the role for the second half of the run), and Martha Hart and Jazzmin James equally impressive as the nasty stepsisters.

Their story emerged as the dominant one for me, while that of Sarah MacDonald’s Rose (from “Snow White and Rose Red”) flitted in and out of focus. She appears initially as a little girl in a white dress and, through interactions with the three faeries (Tyler Angell, Dana MacDonald and Evan Webb) transforms into a young adult.

The faeries’ ethereal presence throughout the show, in Yulia Kinshakova’s beautiful, androgynous, flesh-coloured costumes and shimmering white-gold makeup, is compelling.

At the dress rehearsal I attended, my viewing companion and I were treated to a VIP preshow experience in an intimate backstage area where we were each invited to pick a slip with a word or phrase on it from a silver tray; mine was “pins and needles.”

A faun-like Creature (Brianna Clarke) then led each of us to an intimate encounter with a cast member: this is where I met the Queen (Sam Darius) and had my palm read.

This was an effective and attention-grabbing introduction to the performance world for me, though I wonder if switching from wine to juice for an intimate toast with the Queen could forestall potential difficult moments for audience members who don’t drink alcohol; there’s hardly a split second to give consent.

Darius is an intense and engaging presence throughout the show and their dance duet with Prince Phillip (Jack Rennie) is a highlight, featuring some of the most erotic chemistry and spectacular lifts of the evening.

My intrepid viewing companion, an immersive theatre aficionado, chose the word “elixir” and went on an initial journey involving a series of letters passed between Prince Phillip and the Creature.

By moving into spaces where there were few audience members, my companion found himself having enjoyable impromptu interactions with performers and he also discovered, by rooting around shelves and drawers in Prince Charming’s lair, that this prince has a perhaps unhealthy obsession with the Creature (what would Cinderella say?). Comparing notes afterwards is part of the great fun and satisfaction of this and shows like it.

Both of our initial experiences made us tardy to the opening of the main action with a storytelling sequence led by the Master of Ceremonies (Clayton Gray). It’s therefore possible that we missed something, but we would have appreciated a bit more introductory advice about how to play this interactive theatre game, in terms of what spaces and sorts of contact with performers were on and off limits.

It’s also important to note that the show requires spectators to exert themselves, involving numerous trips up and down stairs. While there are lots of surfaces to lean on and take breaks, it’s not suitable for those with physical limitations.

While the performers are uniformly excellent, the casting has the sometimes discomfiting effect of equating goodness with heterosexual coupling, blond hair and fair skin; perhaps more work could be done to destabilize these limited and dated implications.

Transcen|Dance has done excellent work in delivering a luxurious evening’s entertainment with prices to match (an exclusive experience including preshow encounter, line bypass, coat check and glass of bubbly costs $180 per person, with the lowest ticket price at around $80 including taxes). Getting to New York City to see “Sleep No More” is a lot spendier, though, and this is an impressive local alternative from a company to watch.

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