Millennium Show

The Millennium Show is the must see central attraction that takes place up to five times a day during 2000 at the heart of the Dome. Following a 20 minute pre-show, there will be a 28 minute live aerial and acrobatic spectacle that uses 61 performers at anyone time and the full height of the Dome's 50 metres. The show is set in the Dome's central arena, one of the largest undercover performance spaces in the world and the size of Trafalgar Square. The show has been conceived for the Dome by Mark Fisher (below) and Peter Gabriel.

A unique feature of the Millennium Show when it opens in 2000 will be impressive moving architectural structures that dominate the space, becoming vehicles for the characters and story. Three moving lightweight aerial mobiles (19 metre long x 5 metres high) will enable performers to inhabit the air and establishes a link between the sky and earth. The show is told in the round with the action taking place all around and above us. As the human drama unfolds the narrative is communicated through the cast's physical movements and dramatised by Peter Gabriel's powerful music.

The past year has seen intense activity and determination to bring the Millennium Show to life and marry the technology and many varied physical skills of the performers. The show combines specially developed and created show equipment, like the rocketing bungee stilts and sail diver rigs that enable amazing feats of skill and daring. These intense physical theatre skills currently being rehearsed by the young cast are designed to thrill and amaze audiences. Every few hours, audiences of up to 12,000 will gather at the heart of the Dome taking seats or standing positions in or around the central arena for the 20 minute pre-show. Performers move among the audience inside incredible contraptions distracting and entertaining - creating moments to delight and amaze, enabling the crew to move equipment into place before the show begins.

The costume development process has evolved in consultation with the performers' own needs and specific skills. This collaboration by Keith Khan and his team has involved working with different textile designers, traditional English craftspeople and carnival artists to create costumes that are a fusion of contemporary craft married with the latest developments in hi-performance wear technology.

The Millennium Show's strong and resonant characters take the audience on a series of journeys exploring themes that the audience can identify and connect with. Fisher and Gabriel have created a timeless piece of visual storytelling, a contemporary fable. This is the story of a family divided by internal conflict and by the great changes going on around them - a family in transition each generation struggling with the coming and the passing of their own time. It is also a story of forbidden love.

From a cast of 61 for each show, five principal characters will convey the narrative.

Virgin records- David Scheinman

Peter Gabriel (above) has described the characters as:

Theo - a father who loved the earth and everything that grew from it

Beth - a mother who knew too much and tried to mediate until her family was torn apart by defiance and deceit

Ion - a son who loved machines, taming the fire that destroyed his father

Sophia - a daughter who dared defy and fell in love with an outsider, discovering the mysterious marriage of nature and technology

And Skyboy - an outsider whose dreams turned from mischief and seduction to rebellion and love for Sophia….

As the show's cast will rotate between 3 – 5 performances a day, there will be two casts and two principals for each role. While the Millennium Company has been auditioned and specifically trained from all over the UK and the world, the principals are highly skilled and experienced performers from an eclectic and diverse background. They are drawn from the worlds of theatre, dance, circus, clubbing, opera, ballet and acting. Micha Bergese, the show’s artistic director has assembled a fascinating group of highly talented performers to tell the story.

An eclectic Millennium Company together with a world class creative team, are creating a vast piece of electrifying and moving aerial and acrobatic physical theatre, involving the biggest aerial company on earth. Nothing on this scale has been attempted either technically or creatively and the show will take performance to new physical and performance heights far beyond what previously thought possible.