LEONARDSLEE LIGHTS 2025
presents
A Midwinter Light’s Dream
Leonardslee Lights 2025 was an outdoor theatrical production, a live dramatic performance staged across the woodland, valley and lakes of Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens. Under the title A Midwinter Light's Dream, audiences were guided through a sequence of scripted scenes, each brought to life through composed lighting, original sound design and live performers in role. The landscape became a stage; the dream, the story.
With every step, the woodland revealed new layers of enchantment. Light rippled across quiet lakes, towering trees pulsed with colour, and fleeting figures appeared between the shadows, guiding visitors deeper into an unfolding dream.
This was more than a walk. It was a journey you became part of.
In 2025, Leonardslee became a world of wonder, where Ithaca Studio, Dan Fox, Third Space, and a host of local artists, musicians, and makers brought the woodland to life. Every tree, ripple, and flicker of light became part of a living story, a performance without walls that carried you from one enchanted moment to the next.
by Lantern House
Created by the talented team at Lantern House in Brighton, each hand-crafted creature is more than decoration they're unique characters in a gentle, glowing story that unfolds as you walk. From curious owls to howling wolves, every lantern was carefully imagined and positioned as part of a wider trail narrative, transforming the woodland into a series of magical, illuminated scenes.
NIGHTIME CREATURES
by award-winning designer Dan Fox
This piece transforms the woodland into a responsive, living environment. Trees pulse with light and sound, shifting in rhythm as if the forest itself has come alive. Repositioned deeper within the woodland, the installation becomes a fully enveloping scene within the production, where movement, sound and light interact to create a dynamic, ever-changing atmosphere.
GLITTERING GROVE
MID-WINTER EARTH: WHERE WATER MEETS LIGHT
by Gabriel Burden
Suspended above the cascading waterfall, Midwinter Earth: Where Water Meets Light brings together two elemental forces within a single, composed scene. Illuminated in rich detail, the Earth becomes a focal point within the moving landscape, where flowing water, shifting light and natural texture combine.
REFELECTIONS, A LAKE OF LIGHT
by Phil Supple
Set across the surface of Waterfall Lake, a composed scene of light and atmosphere. Beams and patterns stretch, scatter and reflect across the water, creating layered visuals that shift with movement and perspective.
THE PAVILLION
by Gabriel Burden and Phil Supple
Framing a transition within the journey, The Pavilion: Passage of Light guides guests through a shifting corridor of illumination. Layers of light and structure create a sense of movement and progression, drawing visitors from one scene to the next.
by award-winning Ithaca
Created by award-winning, Brighton-based collective Ithaca, a team of light artists, sound designers and composers, Star Walk transforms the landscape into an immersive celestial environment. Suspended above the audience along a raised walkway, points of light gather and disperse, evoking the vastness and depth of the night sky.
STAR WALK
by ThirdSpace
Emerging from the shadows and foliage, Brighton-based performance company ThirdSpace’s ensemble of woodland creatures and faeries inhabit the landscape as part of the unfolding story. Fleeting and immersive, their presence creates moments of quiet discovery throughout the journey.
These opening characters establish the world of the dream, the first signal to the audience that they have crossed the threshold into another realm.
SPIRITS OF THE WOODLAND
by Iona Scott
Created by Brighton-based artist Iona Scott, this installation draws inspiration from the microscopic world of marine phytoplankton, specifically Discosphaera tubifera, a single-celled organism vital to life on Earth. Through illuminated, large-scale sculptural forms, the work reveals intricate structures normally invisible to the human eye, inviting a shift in perspective from the vast landscape to the hidden systems that sustain it.
DISCOSPHAERA
by Phil Supple
Set to a composed musical score, Dancing Waters brings movement and rhythm to the landscape through a sequence of choreographed fountains. Jets of water rise, fall and shift in time with light and sound, creating a dynamic, ever-changing scene.
DANCING WATERS
by Jigantics
Floating softly across the water, Water Lilies creates a moment of stillness within the journey. The installation draws on natural forms and movement, using light to enhance the quiet beauty of the landscape.
WATER LILIES
A MID-WINTER MOON: STUDY OF LIGHT
by Gabriel Burden
At the heart of the production, Leonardslee’s iconic moon sits as a central scene within the midwinter narrative. Enhanced with a refined, high-definition surface, the installation reveals intricate lunar detail, inviting moments of pause and reflection within the journey.
As a sculptural focal point, the moon acts as both setting and symbol, anchoring the story in a space between dream and reality, where light, stillness and atmosphere converge.
by Light Fires
A landscape of flame unfolds within Fire Garden, where light takes on a raw and elemental form. Created by Light Fires, the installation brings warmth and movement into the night, with flickering forms that shift and breathe within the darkness.
FIRE GARDEN
LEONARDSLEE LIGHTS THROUGH 2025
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