THE concrete blandness of a Newcastle West car park will be re-imagined as a vibrant creative space this weekend as part of the New Annual festival.
Newcastle's Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub will perform Rhapsody on the fifth floor of The Store car park.
The performance - featuring dancers Hugo Poulet, Remy Rochester, Sophia van Gent and Jack Tuckerman - was created by Israeli choreographer Omer Backley-Astrachan.
The brief from Catapult was to incorporate the car park architecture into the performance.
"As an advocate for dance, I want to see dance occur in places other than the theatre and for people to be engaged with contemporary dance, as not so much as an elitist art form, but as something that can exist in alternative spaces," Backley-Astrachan said.
"I see it as a wonderful opportunity to explore what dance could mean in that particular environment."
Rhapsody aims to be a "high intensity" performance with a series of unconnected musical sequences that have an "overarching arc of emotions".
The electronic and grungey musical score for Rhapsody was written by Newcastle-based composer, James Hazel, and takes its inspiration from the city, the harbour and the car park itself.
"A car park is a space where people come and go through every day as part of their day-to-day life," Backley-Astrachan said.
"This is a cool opportunity to go into one of these spaces and expect the unexpected."
Backley-Astrachan said it was exciting to design Rhapsody within the obstacles presented by a car park.
"There were some things we had to take into account, like the floor isn't bouncy," he said. "The space echoes in a different way to the theatre.
"But it's a wonderful opportunity to push our art form to new depths and see what we can do in this obscure location."
Catapult Dance Choreographic Hub will perform Rhapsody at 8pm on Friday and Saturday on the fifth floor of The Store car park in Newcastle West. Visit www.newannual.com for tickets.
