Local Dance Performance, with Augmented Reality

Update:  See comments after seeing the performance.

For anyone in the area, an upcoming dance performance (March 6-8, Urbana, Illinois) may be of interest.

The program is themed “Hybricity”, and features dance compositions by University students and faculty, in collaboration with technicians and researchers.

In particular, I’m looking forward to one piece which some of the artists have described to me.

Kama Begata Nihilum equips the dancers with iPads which serve as sensors and tangible interfaces to the audio and visual elements, enabling the dancers’ gestures to control the stage effects and music.

Apparently, there will also be an Augmented Reality app for the audience to load, which will serve as a magic lens, revealing otherwise invisible 3D imagery within the performance space.

I am also told that there will be an appearance by “iPad man”, which I think will be some kind of large, mobile statuary, but who knows for sure?

Professor John Toenjes has described the concept of the piece in email:

Kama Begata Nihilum is about community and desire, about adapting to change, and about the ways we stay connected to, or disconnected from, each other. The title alludes to the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still, which examines the ways that a community deals with unexpected interjections into the course of its existence. In this dance, iPad man is representative of our insatiable fascination with, and surrender to, the products of our imagination. Interestingly, these seem to take on a life of their own, out of our control. Our dancers define themselves as a community by the way they react to this influx of evolutionary creativity. Their journey is one of discovery, by turns playful and reverent, which we hope the audience will join in with them.

Kama Begata Nihilum will premiere as part of Dance at Illinois’ “February Dance: Hybridity” concert, February 6-8, at 7:30 pm at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois.

Update 1 Feb 2014 11:15:  advance copies of the program are now available: PDF.

On page 4, the program includes information about the app for the audience to load. You probably should load before the performance.  (The QR is for iphone, you many need to search android store for ‘Kama Begata’.