digital theater in denmark

Scott deLahunta (sdela@ahk.nl)
Sun, 16 May 1999 12:05:31 +0200

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The website for the digital theater experimentarium
(http://www.daimi.au.dk/~sdela/dte/) is updated with all the news for the
upcoming presentations (4-6 June 199). In particular this will feature the
following -- please go to the site for all details and contextual information:

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BODYBUILDING - A 3D POEM IN TWO PARTS

Part I: White on White
- is an experimental performance work-in-progress directed by Susan
Rethorst and produced by Scott DeLahunta.

Drawing on motion capture, animation, and projection technologies, the
challenge of creating this work has involved breaking new ground in the
area of collaboration and production utilizing both new and old forms of
performance media. The starting point for the piece was 15 minutes of
movement material choreographed by Susan during the first laboratory of the
experimentarium with two dancers based in Copenhagen, Kamma Sigumfeldt and
Cecilie Sommer. With the support of MAYA animator Thomas Albech, this
movement material was motion captured in April using a wireless magnetic
system. The projection space has been designed by Luca Ruzza from Italy
allowing Jodi Melnick from New York to interact with four screens of
animated motion capture material constructed by a team of animators from
Denmark, Thomas Albech, Carsten Lind (Caligraphics/ Crystal Graphics) and
Soren Birk Jacobsen (administrator of the Danish Alias Wavefront user
website).

Part II: Man Power
- directed by Torunn Kjølner will be investigating the possibilities of
interaction between the live performers and the 3D animations which have
been created during the first laboratory.

For this purpose we found that we had to use different techniques of
theatremaking in order to create interesting links. Thus, the work
demonstration has become a piece of devised theatre inviting the audience
into a room dominated by 10 large screens and three live performers.
Thematically the piece explores potential differences in the male and the
female gaze, gendered spaces and the story of a man searching for new
identities. The collaboration between director Torunn Kjølner and
set-designer Lucca Ruzza has been a fruitful event in the spirit of the
experimentarium: what happens if ...? The demonstration has taken as one
point of depature the structure of the Shakespearean sonnet. The poem-like
qualities we would like to capture concerns a hypertextual dramaturgy
offering many narrative layers and links to the spectator. We will be
working with projections of animated 3D worlds and objects (based on motion
capture data animated by a group of students from the Multimedia Education
at the University of Aarhus), with video prerecorded and live and with
slides and shadows.

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Scott deLahunta in Aarhus, Denmark
[1 May - 15 June 1999]

Digital Theatre Experimentarium
Project Website: http://www.daimi.au.dk/~sdela/dte/

email: sdela@ahk.nl
mobile: +44 (0)797 741 20 60
office phone (general): +45 8942 1814
office phone (direct): +45 8942 5122
office fax: +45 8942 1828

send post to:
Department of Dramaturgy
University of Aarhus
Langelandsgade 139
DK 8000 Aarhus C.
Denmark
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Writing Research Associates
http://huizen.dds.nl/~sdela/wra

Dance and Technology Zone
http://www.art.net/~dtz
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