Closer to God marked an evolution of Nocturnal Medicine’s work into the realms of theater and allegorical storytelling, creating a new kind of full-throttle emotional choreography that wove through all the senses. It was produced for the fledgling festival Dripping which, in its own words, explores the “authentic connections between sound-system driven club music and the experimental avant garde.” Our simple, open-ended invitation was to create something for the festival’s audience on Midnight, Friday - a portal moment into the festival’s next 36 hours of rave. Our stage was a clearing in the woods.

The experience stretched across an hour, weaving together music, narration and verbal instruction, audience action, and pantomime. It was in turns play party, ceremony, and performance art, set to a pulsing soundtrack remixed by Nocturnal Medicine and played by our collaborating DJ The Large.

Over the hour, we spun an initiation into the spiritual integrity of the humble, open heart. Three characters — the Trickster, the Heart, the Divine — guided the audience through a participatory, psychosensual journey whose true destination lay masked, eagerly waiting to be revealed yet aware that sometimes a clever ruse is needed to slip past the heart’s defenses, and that the emergence of the true nature of things comes in time.