To the ominous sounds of gongs, quivering strings, and ticking clocks composed by Milko Lazar, Act One of Clug’s “Dream” opens with a large cast of dancers in sand-toned costumes spread across the stage. As they rise from the floor, limbs jerk into bizarre, angular shapes, flat palms twitch back and forwards like horses’ ears, and feet step rhythmically around the space in snaking lines. These quirky, slightly neurotic motions build a palpable tension, signaling that something is coming. Eventually, we learn they are heralding the entrance of the soon-to-be-wed Duke of Athens and Queen of the Amazons (Cohen Aitchison-Dugas and Weronika Frodyma), who assume regal positions atop a jagged rock face. Meanwhile, the corps dancers keep their bodies flat and forward facing, evoking the 2D appearance of Egyptian hieroglyphs and establishing a quirky yet unsettling movement language that reappears throughout the ballet.

Large-scale, world-building scenes like this are where Clug’s “Dream” truly comes into its own, especially when paired with designer Leo Kulaš’s fantastical costuming. The standout moment of the ballet is when the Athenian forest, the main setting of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” comes to life. A seemingly endless army of dancers dressed in vegetal green catsuits march in zig-zagging pathways across the stage, their faces covered with veined masks and hands replaced with leaf-like appendages that they use to gesture in unison, their motions reminiscent of semaphore or air traffic control. Later, they lay down in a large circle, lifting their red-stockinged legs into the air in perfect symmetry, together appearing like a tropical flower in bloom.

It’s like a scene from John Wyndham’s 1951 post-apocalyptic novel The Day of the Triffids. While only meant to herald the arrival of Titania, Queen of the Fairies (also Frodyma), its spectacle surpasses many of the plot points that follow. Solos, duets, and small group interactions by the main characters feel anticlimactic in comparison, more concerned with conveying the mechanics of Shakespeare’s narrative than capturing its otherworldly essence.