With ‘Hope is a good breakfast, but a poor supper’, the Media Computing Group – led by Professor Dr Ido Aharon Iurgel – and the Duisburg-based theatre producer Max Bilitza are staging an artistic research and performance project for the second time.
Students on the Digital Media and Media and Communication Informatics degree programmes at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences collaborated with professional dancers and artists from North Rhine-Westphalia and abroad to create a multimedia dance performance, which was staged as part of the 39th Duisburger Akzente on 8 March 2018 at 7.30 pm at the Kulturkirche Liebfrauen (König-Heinrich-Platz 3, 47051 Duisburg).
The performance transports the audience into dramatic worlds ranging from cyberwar to real war, in which the methods of choreography, media informatics, the performing arts and cutting-edge digital technology merge to create a captivating, new theatrical language. The audience is immersed in fantastical simulations, filled with (nightmarish) dreamscapes and soundscapes, teeming with moving 3D sculptures that are controlled live before the audience’s very eyes. Interactive stage worlds featuring real-time image processing combine with professional performance and archaic movement patterns. The paintings of the Irish artist Francis Bacon served as inspiration for the production. With intense physicality, the dancers explore the depths of the human soul and question the fundamental patterns of human behaviour, which threaten to blur the lines between archaic and cultural behaviour.
The artist Max Bilitza, who has once again collaborated with the university, is once more enthusiastic about the interdisciplinary partnership. “Motion-capture technology has yet to be fully explored on the theatre stage, but it holds immense potential,” says the Duisburg-based choreographer. Despite all the technology, human involvement remains essential for conveying the content. “This form of digital visualisation of movement is not primarily about mere visual stimulation. New forms of expression are being explored and created that expand the expressive capabilities of the human body in dance and theatre, and offer new ways of understanding and illustrating movement and emotional states,” explains Professor Iurgel.
Further information and the supporting programme for the 39th Duisburg Akzente can be found at http://www.duisburger-akzente.de/de/programm.php.
