Contortionists, Trapeze Artists, and Lucent Dossier’s Psychedelic Circus at Coachella

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The coolest little moment of Coachella was the final performance by the Lucent Dossier Experience, a traveling circus that's been performing at Burning Man and Lightning in a Bottle the last few years. They brought their largest and most mesmerizing show yet to the Gobi stage on Sunday night, in addition to a breathtaking performance at The Do LaB stage for their 10th year in a row. The crew of approximately two dozen members spun their unique fusion of tantalizing dance, aerial maneuvers, cutting-edge costumes, and heart throbbing electronic music. They played to a small yet mesmerized crowd, who after 3 days of music seemed relieve to stumble into another world. Hushed whispers and the glowing faces of the entranced the audience gave away their excitement as richly saturated dancers in steampunk garb played out a storyline about the anger and lust of lovers, digital aliens taking over, and the gooey birth of trapeze artists.

We curled up in the shade before their performance to chat with Eve, a 17-year-old fire spinner, about what its like to be a part of this psychedelic steampunk traveling circus that seems to have stepped out of a Miyazaki film or Dali painting.

"We have a number of dances and pieces, Sara does contortionist on this table, and it looks like she's getting surgery done: its art, dancing, trapeze, fire. Ariel  dances in a tetrahedron. When I first saw Lucent at LIB 2009, I was in complete awe. It was beautiful, they inspire me. I was standing next to my mother at the time and I turned to her and told her I want to be in the circus, that's all I want to do. Three years later I found my talent as a fire-spinner and I got the blessing to join their group. There's no words for it, I just have this weird, itching feeling inside of excitement. I'm constantly inspired by them and grateful I get to learn from these people."

Tell us about the music during your performance

Eve: Our personal band puts together the Dubstep and then they do live music over it so its not just wha-wha-wha but there's real drums, real guitar, vocals. Dream's an amazing singer.

Where do you all come from?

Eve: Most of us live in LA, but we're from all over originally. I'm from Philadelphia, Sara's from Colorado, Jordan's from the South, but we all met in the big city of craziness and put this together.

What's it like running off to join the circus?

Eve: It's a dream come true, its a childhood legend happening. I'm really grateful having all these people in my life and learning from them and having from expressing my art. 

What's your ideal place to perform in the world?

Eve: I would love to be floating in the air, above some mountains in the desert.

So you want to achieve Nirvana in a performance.

Eve: I mean who doesn't want to fly?

Lucent Dossier will also perform at Lightning in a Bottle festival in California over Memorial Day Weekend and stay tuned for info on their North American summer tour at www.lucentdossier.com/. Check out August Bradley's images of Lucent Dossier here and The Darkness After (new film) and Lucent Dossier Gateway Video

See you on the dancefloor,

Jesse Wheaton and Julia Crescitelli