The Dancing Water Theatre was designed by Pei Partnership and is a 270-degree theatre-in-the-round, with a central stage diameter of about 20m. The theatre houses around 260 automated fountains that spurt water up to 18m in the air, and a total of 11 hydraulic stage lifts and vomitory lifts that enable an artistic flow in performance from aquatic to conventional stage.
Contracted by Theatre Projects, Stage Technologies provided a 141-axis whole house control and engineering system for the purpose-built venue. The system includes a 40-unit track and trolley system, which can transport up to 250kg at 3.5m/sec, allowing mobile flying axes to pitch aerialists over the heads of the audience and launch performers from Russian swings into the watery depths below. Stage Technologies lineset winches are rated to 2,000kg at 2½m/s, resulting in the capacity for fast changeovers of Dragone's characteristically complex and beautiful, but sometimes load-heavy sets.
The 100m by 60m grid mirrors the entire theatre area, which is almost completely covered by 'the world's largest commercial pool'. This circular pool holds approximately 3.7m gallons of water allowing the latest genre of aqua performance art to reach new creative horizons. The technical side of the performance required plotting and control from two fixed Acrobat?G6s and two portable Nomads and the show control is further enhanced by an additional four handheld Solos.
In parallel with the installation in Macau, Stage Technologies also provided equipment for Dragone's rehearsals which were taking place at their home base in Belgium. The rehearsal studio contained two tracks and trolleys and eight point hoists, mimicking the main system's functionality and allowing the automation programmers to rehearse and programme the show act by act, both with real world movements and also in an offline, virtual, 3D configuration.
The Stage Technologies teams, both in Macau and at the training venue in Belgium, worked in close conjunction with each other, the dragone technical staff and steve colley, the head of automation and rigging at Dragone, now technical director at the venue.
(Jim Evans)
