L-ISA brings Sleeping Beauty Dreams to life
- Details
Sound and movement achieved stunning cohesion as Noisia’s Thijs de Vlieger’s futuristic score was presented in L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound technology, with every movement of The Princess, performed by celebrated dancer Diana Vishneva, tracked in real time with BlackTrax motion tracking.
Conceived by Miami-based Magic Reality Group (MRG), Sleeping Beauty Dreams (SBD) combines visual art, contemporary dance and avatar-mapping projection, set to an immersive sound of harsh and, at times, darkly ambient electronic music, to create a unique multi-dimensional scenic experience.
To achieve this, L-ISA partner BlackTrax real-time motion tracking was used throughout the entire production.
Additional to its role in tracking for lighting, BlackTrax was also integrated with L-Acoustics L-ISA, which received positional data from BlackTrax to connect visual and audio imaging to deliver a fully immerse experience to the audience. The live content was generated by using Perception Neuron system, to track dancer’s graceful movements via 17 inertial sensors attached to Vishneva’s costume, mapping her movements to giant digital avatars gliding across a large screen just as Prima Ballerina did on the stage floor
The integration of both technologies was done by the Fuse team. The whole show was centred around Vishneva, who, even during one of the most beautiful moments in the production where she dances with her Prince, played by Marijn Rademaker, was the only dancer wearing a motion costume.
MRG chose Euroshow as sound provider for the Russian leg of the tour and Clair Global in the US. St. Petersburg-based Euroshow worked on deploying L-ISA technology across nine shows in eight Russian cities between 14 September and 6 October last year. Andrey Akhromeev, a freelance engineer, was in charge of designing and tuning the sound system according to L-ISA design rules and adapting it to the different venues. He also programmed the playback system, which was running L-ISA control plug-ins.
Akhromeev joined the tour during the early period of the Russian leg, about a month before rehearsals in St. Petersburg. “The desire to use L-ISA technology was there from the very beginning, with the previous production manager introducing the system to the creative team and assistance being provided by Dave Brooks and Carlos Mosquera of L-Acoustics,” he says.
The system comprised five hangs of Kara spread across the front of the stage, with between eight and 14 elements per hang, depending on the venue configuration. Six to eight KS28 subs were flown beside the centre Kara hang.
Between 10 and 18 X8 cabinets were used for the surround system, located along the walls on speaker stands, with the additional option of hanging them using special brackets. The system was driven by 24 LA12X amplified controllers and four P1 system processors, with the M1 measurement suite helping to speed up the system tuning process by communicating directly with the LA12X during calibration procedures, eliminating the need for external software and hardware.
(Jim Evans)
