Hypnotic Kinect Light Installation for a Dance Performance

What do you get when you combine ballet dancers, kinetic light, exquisite music and Chinese folk art? Something pretty extraordinary. 2047 Apologue is the synthesis of this visual poetry created by the Chinese director and visionary, Zhang Yimou. The eight performances, held in June at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing were a collaboration between twenty local and international artists and companies.

Take the Weaving Machine, a truly incredible piece, utterly delightful and magical. So enchanting, you feel transported to another dimension, one where light has a sentient quality, one that shows awareness of the dancer and the old Chinese weaver alike. It was the collective work of The Radugadesign studio in cooperation with WHITEvoid from Germany who teamed up with the director of the London Theater of Contemporary Ballet and CPG-Concept to developed a visual accompaniment for the kinetic dance performance.

Zhang Yimou also developed an alternative concept, where projection content played a leading role, on a par with the dancer and kinetic light. The projection exactly repeated the motion of kinetic balls, creating a homogeneous structure with them. The projection appeared at key moments of the performance to emphasize what was happening on stage and to bring additional volume to the space. They used depth and colour map sequences to recreate the entire setup in Cinema 4D using the shader effector. This helped to synchronize the animation of the balls on the projection with the movement of the kinetic balls.

Zhang Yimou wanted to combine traditional forms of stage performances in total juxtaposition with current expertise and equipment, Chinese folk art with modern technology. In each of the performances, the emphasis was on the fusion of technology in our human lives, but that nothing is eternal. As vital and engaging as technology appears to be in our lives, it is not absolute.

“The most difficult task for this show is getting the audience to accept and acknowledge that their lifestyle, the way they communicate and the way that they work might not be the best” – said Zhang Yimou.

Like all art, it questions us to think. How mindful are we of our existence without our virtual presence in the world? What would happen if we had to communicate again in a space where only face-to-face contact was available? It is this dialogue between ancient culture and modern technology that intrigues Yimou. And it is his visual and creative application of it that intrigues us.