Dinosaurs live amongst us, in more ways than one
From generation spanning plastic toys, to the glitchy stop-motion animation of King Kong’s epic battle with a T rex, to the alarmingly lifelike digital Dinos of Jurassic Park, dinosaurs, these mysterious creatures from earth’s past continue to fascinate us and to haunt and thrill our collective consciousness. However, until relatively recently in scientific terms, we had no reason to believe that any dinosaurs still existed. They were not wrestling on a faraway plateau, prowling the center of the earth, nor popping out of a block of ice, ready to thaw and serve up some Dino action. Nowhere. Until of course we looked out our windows at a backyard feeder, or in our grocer’s meat department. Out of the many thousands of diverse dinosaur body plans that roamed or paddled, crawled or jumped about, we live amongst the mostly air-worthy creatures we call birds. Birds are dinosaurs, every single skinny legged one of them. They are not just like dinosaurs with surprisingly similar anatomical features, but descend directly in a line from them. Just as we are of the species Homo, the only branch that with luck and a few useful adaptations still exist today, so birds are the only dinosaurs that survived among other indignities, the end of the Jurassic period.
And yet our imaginations still yearn to meet the other dinosaurs, towering meat eaters with bared teeth, house sized, tree trunk legged vegetarians with ultra long necks, horned and armor headed monsters, the dinosaurs which represent the fantastic Mesozoic world of which nothing remains but fossils. In 1868, a decade after it was discovered in New Jersey, the remains of a Hadrosaurus became the first dinosaur skeleton to ever be mounted for public display. So, painstakingly prepared skeletons of fossil remains or reproductions thereof, housed in museums had been the sole means of truly “meeting” dinosaurs. Our imaginations fleshed and animated these fantastic beasts, making them, at least in our minds eye’s, alive. The next step came years later and more lifelike models with meat and skin added but most were dull eyed and dusty museum specimens. But there had to be a better way still to meet them.
DINOS ALIVE THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE takes our dream of an encounter with the fantastic much much further. Wonder and amazement paint the faces of visitors to the Expo, wonder that begins outside of Armory Studios NY of Schenectady as they first mount this imposing building’s grand staircase. Inside, the massive scale of Armory Studios New York’s Studio A, befits these behemoth reproductions, their leafy surroundings and the evocative sound and lighting effects. Dinosaurs have found a new home in this massive space and they are ready for company.
With varying skin textures, wildly colorful markings, realistic movement and sound, a Spinosaurus bellows and bears its long, teeth studded jaws, a Sauropod munches greenery, its head lost in the ceiling lights, a triceratops family greets visitors at the door and T rex returns to take its rightful place in all its frightening majesty, to lord over the Dino studded exhibition hall. While thousands of Dinosaur species have been discovered, another joining their ranks nearly every week, DINOS ALIVE does a fantastic job of bringing us a sampling of a broad range of body plans, from beasts living all throughout the Mesozoic Period. There are even a couple of Pterosaurs, enormous of beak, screeching from perches and flying overhead on flapping, leathery wings. Our massive hall of animatronic dinosaurs aside, there is even more that modern technology offers visitors.
The simulated Immersive Aquarium is a glowing space in which projections allow you to be surrounded by sea creatures that come to life from across forgotten time. Jellyfish pulse, Ammonites flash past and huge fish like monsters wrap around where you stand, monsters that even jolt to life when you touch or throw a supplied beach ball against the “glass”. It really must be experienced to appreciate this wondrous immersive and responsive theater.
But the high tech wonders don’t stop there. An available Virtual Reality experience flips the script from dinosaurs come to life in our world, to us, frail Homo Sapiens, reaching across millions of years to visit them in their world. Riding atop a Stegosaurus, you tromp along forest, hillsides and valley, meeting up with your own herd chomping on grasses, clever velociraptors, skittering nearly underfoot on their way to feed on the carcass of downed Theropod. You will even have a close encounter with a toothy, menacing T rex, passing on your left, who decides to give you a pass, fearing your Triceratops’ horns. Soon you are airborne riding on a huge Pterosaur as it glides through a bewilderingly beautiful landscape of vegetation both familiar and alien, in which creatures, tiny from your lofty perspective, pass silently below. In the distance, rivers carve and volcanos belch smoke and lava. On either creature’s back your trip is a mind blowing 360 degree journey. Look ahead over the crown of your Stegosaurus, look back to see its rump and tail moving in rhythm to its gait. Look left and right to take in a wild variety of dinosaurs going about their activities, look up to see the sky. It is truly wonderful and a deeply significant reminder that this earth, beautiful and vast, was once theirs. For 165 million years dinosaurs were the dominant life form here. From tiny to the largest land animals that ever lived, they filled every niche and adapted to nearly every environment.
On your visit to the Expo, this prehistoric world come to life and you shall meet many life-like creatures, but you will not meet a Paleontologist. We have you covered however. Visit the ASK DR TRILOBITE tab on our website to ask your Dino inspired questions of Dr. Lisa Amati, State Paleontologist and Curator of Paleontology for the New York State Museum. She will even appear in person on July 18 at the screening of the Spielberg classic JURASSIC PARK at Proctors. That screening on the GIANT SCREEN of the GE Theatre is sponsored by the delicious and diverse THIRSTY DINO DINER MENU at ARMORY LOUNGE NY.
In closing, many thousands of people young and old will have their imaginations expanded by this educational and very entertaining portrayal of Mesozoic Era creatures that is DINOS ALIVE THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE and they will leave with thousands of reasons to Google up Dino facts or scare up scientific videos on YouTube to learn even more. Will a visit to DINOS ALIVE connect the dots, start a fire in a young patron’s mind, a fire that can only be quenched by themselves becoming a Paleontologist? We like to think so.