The Fluffy Cloud Brings a Mind-Bending Sound Bath to D.C.
A 15-ton orb of sound and light transforms BEHRTA into an immersive playground of art, music, and sensory-driven wellness.
Face up, eyes closed, fully reclined in a zero-G chair, I can still sense a play of light across my eyelids as the 15-ton sound system suspended above me “bathes” my whole body in a bass-heavy ocean of electronic chords and nature sounds.
Whale songs and raindrops, the sounds cascade over me, vibrating through me, and I sink deeper into the chair, completely relaxed. For a moment, I no longer feel the chair beneath me, I just feel held. When I finally open my eyes, twenty minutes after we started the 15-Ton Sound Bath, I’m not ready to leave.
That was the case, apparently, for each of us who attended the media preview earlier this week of The Fluffy Cloud Experience, a spectacular installation of “art, wellness, music, and mayhem,” touching down for two weeks at D.C.’s voluminous BEHRTA.
The installation is anchored by an enormous orb pulsating with light, the Fluffy Cloud, a 15-ton, three-story-tall structure housing over 200,000 watts of sound and illumination.
The brainchild of engineer and entrepreneur Jorge Perdomo, the Fluffy Cloud was born of his experiences at Burning Man, and decidedly reflects the trippy, mind-and-body immersion of a festival or rave.
Boasting ultra-low bass, the booming 360-degrees of sound, and dancing lights and lasers, fill the venue’s huge open space — the same location where, a couple of years ago, I saw Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma take no prisoners in STC’s Macbeth.
For the Fluffy Cloud Experience, the space is dressed as a groovy Garden of Eden, complete with ersatz trees hung with swings and light sculptures spread around the room. It’s as inviting a spot as any for a communal art, wellness, or music adventure.
“People aren’t just looking for another night out,” says Perdomo. “They want connection and something they’ve never felt before.” The Fluffy Cloud offers a menu of four ways to seek that connection, so you can choose your own adventure.
At the preview, the choice was made. We experienced the scientifically-engineered wellness session of the 15-Ton Sound Bath, and sampled the immersive art, music, and light show known as Enter Cloudfall. For a significantly different price, $100 for the sound bath, compared to $20 for Enter Cloudfall, one can enjoy significantly different nights in the same space.
The Fluffy Cloud Experience also includes Fluffy Cloud Concert nights, featuring secret international and local artists performing live with that amazing system, and the Psychotic Jukebox Lounge, a party where patrons will have to play games of skill and daring to earn the chance to plug into that glorious sound system and blast the tracks of their choice.
While that definitely sounds like our kind of party, the Sound Bath was a special event in its own right, even if the preview lasted only 20 minutes, compared to the 45-minute session for paying customers.
Perdomo and collaborator Tom Middleton, the musician, engineer, and sleep scientist coordinating many of the project’s multi-sensory effects, were both on hand to enthusiastically guide us through the Sound Bath session.
Keenly aware of the site construction and last-minute touches going on around us, Perdomo started us off with the basics. “When you really think about it, it kind of makes obvious sense: music can make you happy, it can make you sad,” he said. “If it can make me down or it can make me happy, why couldn’t it make me de-stressed?”
Following him into a red-lit lounge, our de-stressing began with a tray of starters: one cup of Kava, a root-based drink known for its hypnotic and muscle-relaxant effects; one capsule of hyper-micronized L-theanine, a tea-derived amino acid supplement considered beneficial for reducing stress and anxiety, and boosting mental function; an eye mask and earplugs.
“Why did we select this?” Perdomo asked rhetorically. “We’ve done an incredible amount of research around what are the things that are on the cutting edge right now around helping people enter a more relaxed state that doesn’t involve Xanax or alcohol, or all the things that we’ve been poisoning ourselves with for a long time.”
So, maybe it was the Kava. Although I’m pretty sure the 15-Ton Sound Bath worked wonders in relaxing me deeper and deeper into the zero-G chair.
“We’re just gently, socially and responsibly, down-regulating you for 45 minutes,” Middleton explained of the therapeutic sound and light immersion. “You get lost in sounds, particularly when it’s frequencies you’ve never experienced before. How many opportunities in life are you gonna get to feel the sound of a blue whale?”
Not many, and not for long, before the Fluffy Cloud floats on to other skies.
The Fluffy Cloud runs through April 12, at BEHRTA, 1237 W St. NE. Tickets are $15 to $100. Visit fluffycloudexperiences.com.
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