Arts & Entertainment
 

Planetarium lights up 'Dark Side' once again

By Amy Perez
The Daily Cougar

Remember middle school field trips to the Museum of Natural Science? After a guided tour through galleries of reconstructed dinosaur bones, the class was led to the Burke Baker Planetarium to experience the universe beyond planet Earth. Seated in a reclined blue chair and facing upward toward the dome-shaped ceiling, students were whisked away into a realm of stars and planets only visible through a telescope.

This summer, the museum 

(1 Hermann Circle Drive, www.hmns.org) is once again putting a new spin on the traditional, informative space odyssey of the planetarium by synchronizing space scenes, graphics and animation with Pink Floyd's timeless Dark Side of the Moon. The album, which was first released in 1973, contains classic rock songs and instrumentals that make up the perfect score to an incredible journey through the uncharted dimensions of space and imagination.

Seamless spirals of color and ambiguous shapes and structures provide the backdrop for your trip to the Dark Side. Gravity-defying landscapes are visited, opposing colors are strategically placed together for optical effects, and flashes of light make you forget the museum, the people next to you and the cell phone vibrating in your pocket. All the while, the vocals of David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Richard Wright -- and the few minutes of Clare Torry's passionate wails in "The Great Gig in the Sky" -- instigate thoughtful turbulence in your mind.

The show may not leave you with a newfound knowledge of the planets, but it is sure to entertain, even captivate, Pink Floyd fans and space geeks alike. Even though the "dark side of the moon" is merely the side of the moon not visible from Earth, Pink Floyd's quintessential album, coupled with an hour's worth of digital artistry, creates a planetarium experience worth more than the price of a movie ticket, and one sure to beat any childhood tour of the solar system.
 
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