iLuminate Illuminates A New Type Of Dance Spectacle

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Instead of the traditional follow spot, the iLuminate dancers wear their lights. It's a fashion statement incorporating art, technology and spectacle. NY1's Stephanie Simon has more.

It's bright lights in the big city. iLuminate lit up the stage on TV's "America's Got Talent" in 2011 and now founder and Columbia University Graduate Miral Kotb, a trained dancer and software developer, is bringing her high-tech high-energy dance troupe home to the Duke Theater on 42nd Street for a new show called "Artist of Light."

"You're basically watching a dance performance," Kotb said. "But instead of the lights being all around the dancers -- like moving lights and strobe lights -- dancers embody the light."

Miral designed the software that syncs the lights to the music and moves.

"It’s a unitard with electric luminescent wires sewn over," iLuminate's head of wardrobe Becky Rosefelt said. "It is many, many hours of work and a lot of Velcro and a lot of zippers."

"You can actually use technology to create beauty," Kotb said. "I think slowly people are starting to realize it is an art."

Besides their big reality TV appearance, these suits have also been made famous by the likes of Chris Brown and the Black Eyed Peas.

The dancers say the suits are bulky but they don't feel weighed down by them.

"They say they feel like superheroes when they wear the suit," Kotb said. "It makes you feel like you can do anything."

Robotic, human and superhuman; ILuminate's "Artist of Light" is at the Duke Theater through Jan. 5. Tickets start at $49.50.

For more information, visit new42.org or iLuminate.com.