For Purchase College, SUNY’s Alumni Weekend 2017 kick-off event, The Heliotrope & Puce Alumni Ball, the goal was to create an alumni experience that felt more like a surreal downtown happening than a traditional reunion.

We took our inspiration from the intersection of liberal arts and sciences, blending immersive performance, experimental design, nightlife energy, and playful academic references into an environment designed for exploration and discovery.

During the opening reception, chemistry-inspired cocktails emerged from laboratory beakers swirling with dry ice. A lounge for quiet conversation was designed as a library in a Fifth Avenue penthouse. Guests entered a ballroom saturated in deep purples and crimson light, where sculptural performers moved behind cascading curtains of lace and fringe. The room was filled with shadowy silhouettes and atmospheric projections.

The result was an experience that felt cinematic, intellectually playful, and unmistakably contemporary — less like a formal alumni event and more like stepping inside a living piece of performance art.

Because the most memorable gatherings don’t always unfold in straight lines or happen under bright spotlights.

Sometimes they wander, pulse, collide, and evolve over the course of the night — happening in the spaces between curiosity, conversation, surprise, and reconnection.