(Webneel, 2016) (Pinterest, 2016)

Salvador Dali was a well renowned flamboyant artist, sculptor, writer, advertiser and filmmaker.

One of the quotes that Salvador Dali stated that made me grasp surrealism the most, was this:

“I would awake at sunrise, and without washing or dressing sit down before the easel which stood right beside my bed.
Thus the first thing I saw on awakening was the painting I had begun, as it was the last I saw in the evening when I retired…
I spent the whole day seated before my easel, my eyes staring fixedly, trying to ‘see’, like a medium (very much so indeed),
the images that would spring up in my imagination. Often I saw these images exactly situated in the painting…” (Dali & M Chevalier, 1942).

 This really made me think of the way in which I now saw surrealism. In our show, we decided on making a very surrealistic, dreamlike world for Cinderella, I took inspiration from this quote because Salvador Dali himself would wake up and paint whatever he dreamt about the night before, which is why his paintings were so weird but wonderful. I wanted the same impact in the performance, a weird and wonderful world which was all in Cinderella’s head, just like a dream. As Salvador had many different paintings of his dreams, which were usually completely random and the objects we saw in the paintings did not make sense, I felt that we needed this same essence for our final performance.

Dali, S. & M Chevalier, H., 1942. The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. New York: Dover Publications.

Pinterest, 2016. Salvador Dali Paintings. [Online] Available at: https://uk.pinterest.com/explore/salvador-dali-paintings/ [Accessed 24 May 2016].

Webneel, 2016. 25 Famous Salvador Dali Paintings – Surreal and Optical illusion Paintings. [Online] Available at: http://webneel.com/salvador-dali-famous-surreal-optical-illusion-paintings [Accessed 24 May 2016].