Das Totale Tanztheater
Thorsten Schwarck is a senior project manager at Interactive Media Foundation here in Berlin and has been a friend of mine for over 15 years. For a couple of years, we were even door-to-door neighbours in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin. He alerted me to a VR project he was working on at the time and which has premiered in Berlin a couple of months ago and is now, after a first stop in Amsterdam's Eye Film Museum, on a world tour. The whole thing was created for the centenary of Bauhaus, and I thought it might be of interest to you:
The Virtual Reality Installation for Man and Machine, developed by the Interactive Media Foundation and Filmtank, co-created by Artificial Rome on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Bauhaus, is starting its international tour after a spectacular debut in Berlin.
The first stop was at the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. There, Das Totale Tanz Theater continued the first-class VR series Xtended from 5-13 March, which has previously featured works by artists such as Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Laurie Anderson, and Marina Abramović. The Xtended series in the Eye’s focuses on debate-sparking virtual reality projects by filmmakers and artists. After Amsterdam Das Totale Tanz Theater will be heading straight to the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Denmark, where both projects will be presented as part of the international documentary film festival CPH:DOX. In Germany, the next stops on the tour include the newly opened Bauhaus Museum by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, starting on 8 September 2019.
Das Totale Tanz Theater 360 is also featured on the ARTE 360° platform until January 2020. More information and tour locations are available online at www.dastotaletanztheater.com
Das Totale Tanz Theater, inspired by the stage experiments at the Bauhaus, and the writings of Oskar Schlemmer, deals with a subject, which has lost none of its relevance, namely the interplay between man and machine. “100 years ago, Oskar Schlemmer thought and experimented on the relationship between man and machine in the context of industrialisation and mechanisation. Today we are faced with the same issue through the lens of the development of artificial intelligence. And this is where Das Totale Tanz Theater takes its cue, using the means of the 21st century”, says Diana Schniedermeier, Managing Director of the Interactive Media Foundation.
Das Totale Tanz Theater provides an integrated, immediate experience thanks to the interplay between the different arts and cutting-edge digital technology. Based on the Interactive Media Foundation’s idea and dramatic composition, the choreographer Richard Siegal developed a piece of choreography that was digitised using body scanning and motion capture techniques and rearranged in three-dimensional space. The experts at Artificial Rome designed the scenography and costumes and oversaw the technical realisation. The dramaturgy is accompanied by electronic music composed by Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch. The six-minute 360° video draws viewers into an intricately designedvirtual stage that presents Richard Siegal’s choreography accompanied by a song specially created for the video by Einstürzende Neubauten
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Thorsten Schwarck, Senior Project Manager, Interactive Media Foundation, Berlin
Credits: A PROJECT OF Interactive Media Foundation & Filmtank co-created with Artifical Rome. TEAM Idea & Story: Diana Schniedermeier, MAYA PUIGLEAD VR CREATORS MAYA PUIG Patrik De Jong DIRK HOFFMANN LEAD TECHNOLOGIST TORSTEN SPERLING Sebastian Hein EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DIANA SCHNIEDERMEIER CHOREOGRAPHY RICHARD SIEGAL COMPOSITION LORENZO BIANCHI-HOESCH DANCERS MARGARIDA NETO CLAUDIA ORTIZ ARRAIZA COREY SCOTT-GILBERT DIEGO TORTELLI VOICE BLIXA BARGELD CREATIVE PRODUCER MAYA PUIG COSTUMES DIRK HOFFMANN NIcO ALEXANDER TANIYAMA CONCEPT DIRK HOFFMANN PATRIK DE JONG ART DIRECTOR DIRK HOFFMANN NICO ALEXANDER TANIYAMA ROBERT WERNER 3D ARTIST LEAD NICO ALEXANDER TANIYAMA 3D ARTIS DANA WÜRZBURG CHRISTIAN RAMBOW CHOREOGRAPHY PROGRAMMING TORSTEN SPERLING TECHNOLOGIS DENNIS TIMMERMANN HUI-YUAN TIEN SOUND DESIGN VICTOR AUDOUZE INSTALLATION ARCHITECTURE UNIT BERLIN MOTION CAPTURE FACILITATORS MIMIC PRODUCTIONS PROJECT MANAGEMENT THORSTEN SCHWARCK JOCHEN WATRAL KRISTIN SPERLING CO-PRODUCER SASKIA KRESS MICHAEL GROTENHOFF360 THE 360° VIDEO DAS TOTALE TANZ THEATER 360 IS BASED ON THE VR EXPERIENCE OF THE SAME NAME, CREATED BY THE INTERACTIVE MEDIA FOUNDATION & ARTIFICIAL ROME, IN COOPERATION WITH ZDF/ARTE. CHOREOGRAPHY RICHARD SIEGAL MUSIC "Si Takka Lumi" By Einstürzende Neubauten (Bargeld / Bargeld, Chudy, Hacke, Moser, Arbeit), Produced by Einstürzende Neubauten and Boris Wilsdorf DIRECTOR MAYA PUIG EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DIANA SCHNIEDERMEIER Artificial Rome VR Leads Patrik De Jong, Dirk Hoffmann, Torsten Sperling, Sebastian Hein, Nico Alexander Taniyama EDITING INVR.SPACEPhilipp Wenning, Jessice Zippel
Poster for the project.
Here's a Making Of video which might give you the best impression what this is all about.
