Dark Tales is an immersive musical and visual journey inspired by the eerie ghost stories, folklore, and childhood memories found in Tom Dawe’s An Old Man’s Winter Night, with illustrations by Veselina Tomova.
Conceived as a live concert event, Dark Tales is also designed for both 3D and 2D presentations, integrating moving images with live performance, combining music with mesmerizing visuals by animator Duncan Major. Commissioned by Duo Concertante through the support of Canada Council for the Arts, the immersive experience highlights the evocative power of concert music, enhanced by the dynamic integration of animated visuals.
The five movements, each about 10 minutes long, seamlessly unfold without intermission, each drawing from a different ghostly narrative in Dawe’s collection. Audiences, seated close to the performers and surrounded by projected animations, are invited into a magical world filled with phantoms, fairies, fetches, and other figures from folklore.
The opening movement, An Old Man’s Winter Night, recounts stories of malevolent spirits that take animal form. The second movement, Landwash Spirits, depicts shipwrecks and the restless souls lost at sea. Sheba, the third tale, tells of a trapper saved from a storm by the ghost of a dog he once betrayed. In The Woman in the White Dress, the spirit of a bride haunts those who recall her tragic death before her wedding day. The final tale, The House in the Drook, revolves around a haunted house cursed by being built on a fairy ring.
Immersed in this unique sensory environment, Dark Tales delves into the mysteries of the supernatural while reflecting on universal themes of desire, love, grief, and regret. The performance captivates the imagination, offering a new dimension to the art of storytelling.
