Dance - Got a light?

Light is a duplicitous demon: A little reveals, but a little more blinds. Life — except for the dismal chemosynthetics that huddle around vulcan vents on the ocean floor — depends on and follows light: the turning faces of sunflowers; ubiquitous moths flitting around a flame; paramours making love under the August moon.

“Everything seems to be drawn to light,” says Michael Marlin, creator of Luma, a discipline-spanning performance piece of light illusions that is running this weekend at Art Station. “Light has a mass to it ... a gravitational pull because without light, there’s no life.” Luma choreographs that attraction, using techniques of mime, puppetry, juggling, dance and acrobatics to manipulate various pyrotechnic, photochemical and electric light sources. (Imagine high-energy Mummenschanz with neon.)

Many of Luma’s creations rely on the persistence of vision, the brief retinal burn that follows photons already gone, like your name written with sparklers on the Fourth of July. Luma paints the darkness with glowing tubes, indoor fireworks, hand-held lights and dramatically lit fabrics. The result is a series of evanescent light sculptures and illuminated narratives: twisting double helices, fireflies in flight, commuters in the ultimate power suits, and gods in electric fights.

Because of space restrictions, the ART Station show will be what Marlin calls “Luma-Lite.” (Ha!) The space-gobbling works will be replaced by some of the performers’ solo works-in-progress. This is actually a good thing. While Luma is a dazzling and magical show overall, it sometimes feels a bit overproduced, a little too Broadway or Las Vegas. (Luma’s website posts a favorable quote from Seigfried and Roy.) The addition of some raw work should help rekindle the show’s fringe flame.

Luma runs May 14-18 at ART Station, 5384 Manor Drive, Stone Mountain. Wed-Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 3 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 7 p.m. $17-$23. 770-469-1105. artstation.org.