FORMULAE & FAIRY TALES

The show that LA Dance Chronicle called, “Dance theatre at its finest.”

MATH, SEX, FAIRY TALES, HUMOR, DEATH…

Formulae & Fairy Tales is a full-length work casting the life of Alan Turing, mathematical genius and World War II codebreaker and the technicolor mythology of his favorite film, Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After the war, Turing was criminally prosecuted for being gay and forced into chemical castration. In 1954, he died by eating an apple laced with cyanide, an act eerily foreshadowed by Snow White.

The production places the cold, high-stakes world of mathematics, artificial intelligence, and cryptography alongside a vivid, twisted fairy tale palette. The choreography blends historical events, sexuality, gender identity, and our essential humanity.  Sweeping video projections and an original music score create an immersive theatrical experience. 

“A wonderful, beautiful, and often heart-wrenching work of art.”

LA Dance Chronicle

“The brilliant choreography of Laura Karlin, Invertigo Dance Theatre’s Founding Artistic Director, creates a dream-like, fascinating world of mathematics, artificial intelligence, and cryptography that is also a love story, and a tale that expresses great loneliness and injury.”
Diversions LA

CREATED BY:
Laura Karlin

ORIGINAL CAST:
Cody Brunelle-Potter, Hyosun Choi, Jessica Dunn, Spencer Jensen, Corina Kinnear, Dominique McDougal, Luke Dakota Zender

2023 TOURING CAST:
Cody Brunelle-Potter, Will Clayton, Hyosun Choi, Jessica Dunn, Corina Kinnear, Derion Loman, Luke Dakota Zender

VIDEO PRODUCTION
DESIGN BY:

NightLight Labs

LIGHTING DESIGN BY:
RS Buck

ORIGINAL MUSIC BY:
Toby Karlin, Julia Kent, Eric Mason

FORMULAE & FAIRY TALES

Explore the world of this performance.

PRESS 

Formulae & Fairy Tales: Sublime Dance from Invertigo Dance Theatre

“Sublime… the end result is both magical and precise, story telling crafted from motion.”
Diversions LA

Review: In a breakthrough show, Invertigo Dance takes a delicious bite from a forbidden apple

“In a breakthrough show, Invertigo Dance takes a delicious bite from a forbidden apple.”
Los Angeles Times

TECH RIDER & ENGAGEMENT

Booking Formulae & Fairy Tales? Choose from this rich menu of options to create the combination that best matches your community. If you know everything or nothing about Alan Turing, computer science, queer activism and LGBTQIA+ histories, dance as a social practice, everyone will have a place in this exploration.

Dance Theatre Workshops

All workshops offer a combination of dance/movement, narrative methodologies, and socio-cultural inquiry. Different choreographic engagements with social themes can be created.

 

Venue: Dance studio, community room or theater space.
Duration: 1 – 3 hours per workshop

 

1) Transformation through Fairy Tales, Symbolism & Storytelling
Transformation through Fairy Tales, Symbolism, and Storytelling Engaging directly with objects and narrative sequences, participants explore movement practices that invert and transform symbols and stories into worlds with new meaning.

 

2) The Invertigo Inversion Technique: Gender Play & Inventive Partnering
The Invertigo Inversion Technique: Gender Role Play Drawing upon choreography from Formulae & Fairy Tales, participants will play with re-socializing gender through unlikely pairings, unexpected movements, and symbols that are inverted to upend how we embody gender.

 

3) Machines, Math & the Body Politic
Machines, Math, & the Body Politic With Alan Turing’s question at the center of this workshop, participants will experiment with the borders and possibilities between machine and human. Choreographic prompts will generate a sequence of outputs and equations, and participants will collaborate in creating a movement tableaux of the body politic.

Panels, Lectures, Public Dialogues

Interactive discussion formats tailored to your community interests in the themes in Formulae & Fairy Tales.

Venue: Lecture halls, auditoriums or theaters.
Duration: 30 mins – 2 hours

 

1) STEAM: Storytelling Through Movement at the Intersection of Arts + Science
2) Alan Turing, the Turing Test & LGBTQ Heroism
3) Binary Codes: From Machines to the Gender Revolution

Salons

Small-scale, intimate opportunities for community dialogue through lively, inventive prompts and activities for postshow engagement or afternoon campus activity.

 

Venue: Lobbies, theaters, community rooms.
Duration: 30 mins – 1.5 hours

 

1) Data, Dance & Donuts
2) Apples, Engineering & Artificial Intelligence
3) Storytelling & Movement: An Elixir for our Times

Don’t see exactly what you want? Contact us to strategize about unique themes and formats.

Book Invertigo Dance Theatre

We’d love to visit your school, activate your community, and perform on your stage!
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