If you’re a Beatles fan, this work’s title will immediately conjure the band’s famous song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and its psychedelic imagery.

Here, the eponymous Lucie^® is a trademarked micro-drone, one of five jewel-toned fireflies with individual anthropomorphic identities and names.

Australasian Dance Collective’s Lucie in the Sky. Photo © David Kelly

Developed by Switzerland’s world-leading Verity Studios, these autonomous indoor drones have starred (pun intended) in productions by Cirque du Soleil, Céline Dion, Justin Bieber and Drake.

The aerial quintet engage as characters with the six Australasian Dance Collective (ADC) dancers, and that is what distinguishes this pioneering full-length world premiere from other dance pieces that have incorporated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology.

Some have featured dancers and drones moving in sync; others, independent drone choreography. A decade ago, US company Pilobolus made the first, collaborating with MIT student drone pilots on Seraph. Its initial dynamic was reactive, the featured dancer registering trepidation at the drones’ intrusion.

Today, drones’ purposes have expanded to the more prosaic, becoming tools assisting everyday tasks.

But in the six years it has taken ADC artistic director Amy Hollingsworth to realise her concept, we have arrived...