Daniil Simkin's 'Falls the Shadow' at Guggenheim: Tech-Driven Dance Performance

Daniil Simkin, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), presented 'Falls the Shadow' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2017, commissioned by the Works & Process Rotunda Project. The performance featured ABT soloist Cassandra Trenary, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's Ana Lopez, and dancer Brett Conway, with choreography by Alejandro Cerrudo. Costumes were designed by Dior's artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri, projections by Dmitrij Simkin, and intermedial visual design by Arístides Job García Hernández. The piece used motion sensors to capture dancers' movements in real time, generating 3D visual maps projected onto the rotunda's walls and floor, aiming to create an immersive experience blending technology, music, visual art, fashion, and dance. The performance took place in the museum's iconic rotunda, a space previously used for Maurizio Cattelan's 'All' (where works hung from the ceiling). Critic Stefano Tomassini noted that the surrounding architecture and artworks risked overshadowing the performance, and that the choreography, while technically adept, failed to match the evocative power of the video projections. The most successful moment was a duet between Simkin and Trenary, where the partnering surpassed the choreographic invention. Simkin subsequently left for the Staatsballett Berlin to work with Sasha Waltz.