Often times when a show is designated as “intriguing,” it’s a nice way of categorizing the pretentious air of mystery an artist has tried to adopt. Not so with Olimpia Dior’s photos of the Midsummer Night’s Eve celebration at Secret Project Robot. These are just straight up intriguing in the sense that they make you wish you knew more about what is happening here. It’s that feeling of intrigue, but very much so.

Billed as a sort of urban-pagan celebration of the solstice brought to you by “dragonsolsticesorcerors,” the performances were clearly theatrical, particularly Jennifer Vanilla’s, which seemed not the least bit vanilla. The entire affair was clearly deeply immersive and included the sort of careful attention to mist that is necessary for any serious fantasy-based production. It’s also included — get this — wand making. It all added up to us bemoaning the fact that the Summer Solstice comes but once a year. Hopefully, they will do it again for the winter solstice: we’d be there with ice-wands.

Less in the midsummer tradition of Puck and more in the vein of paganism trending towards Satanism was Haribo. Led by artist, musician, and consummate showman Raul De Nieves, Haribo brought the scorching noisiness of metal to the proceedings, and the subsequent spectacle and inflatable fish seem to have brought particular delight to Olimpia Dior’s camera.