The Living Garden at Palazzo brings plants to life for a very Vegas experience

Riddle: What do you get when you cross a living statue from The Venetian with the animatronic fountains at Caesars?

Answer: The Living Garden at Palazzo.

Riddle: What's the Living Garden?

Answer: See first question.

It may sound like it, but this isn't one of those lateral thinking puzzles that makes your head feel like it's going to explode. But to some, the Living Garden might be an enigma.

For 50 minutes, dancers dressed as statues and grape-bearing vines put on a free show for people passing through the Shoppes at the Palazzo.

It starts off with three "stone" statues standing in the fountain outside of Barneys New York, a cascading waterfall serving as their backdrop. A mash-up of operatic tunes play while they sway and move to the beat. Water streams out of their fingertips and heads. Then, after the statues finish their 15-minute performance, two plastic grape-bearing vines appear and mingle with the crowd.

The concept, says Priscilla Stephan, creator of the Living Garden, transforms the real into the surreal.

This is where, for some, the concept becomes an enigma: Why not use actual statues?

"We wanted our guests to have an experience that is unique to the Palazzo," says Kate Bennett, Palazzo's director of creative outreach.

And real statues aren't very Vegas-y, are they?

The walking, grape-bearing vines that stand more than 9 feet tall speak for themselves. They interact with bystanders by striking poses as creeping vines or standing still and looking like potted plants. They can be taken as a playful tribute to nature or just one of those odd things you see on the Strip, especially when the vine arches herself over an escalator, making pedestrians walk under her.

Played by dancers, the vines achieve their height through the use of stilts, says Stephan, who owns 2nd Nature Productions. Stephan choreographs the shows, but gives her dancers some leeway in interpreting their performances.

"I liken it to jazz. We give them a framework, but they can improvise," says Stephan, who came up with the idea for the Living Garden in 1996.

No one asked her to, she simply wondered what a living garden would look like. She played the original vine and used real grapes at first.

"I asked myself, 'If you wanted to animate a garden, how would you go about it?' " she explains. "I wanted to get inside it and understand it."

The Living Garden is appearing at the Palazzo through February. Performances are daily at noon, 1:30, 3, 4:30 and 6 p.m.

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@reviewjournal. com or 702-380-4564.