Dancers performing with digital audio and video technology in a "black box" studio will be one of several high-tech live performances Oct. 13 at a free public open house for the University of Colorado at Boulder's new ATLAS Building.
The yet-to-be-titled interdisciplinary performance will include eight student dancers, a computer-enhanced acoustic grand piano and four live video feeds to be projected as part of the performance. The performers will control and interact with the piano, video and studio lighting using voice- and motion-analysis technology.
"There will be dancers, but also cameras and microphones," said assistant professor of dance Michelle Ellsworth. Ellsworth co-created the performance with associate professor of music Michael Theodore, who teaches composition and music technology.
"It's pretty hard to label this work," Theodore said. "It's not a dance, a film piece or a music piece. It's a performance, in the broadest sense."
The new ATLAS building includes a production studio, a state-of-the-art film screening room and other unique facilities designed to focus on the convergence of technology, media and the arts. ATLAS stands for Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society.
The two-story, 2,700-square-foot black box performance space is designed to provide digital technology for creative digital cinema, interdisciplinary performances that combine musicians, dancers, visual artists and technology, visiting artist Web casts, interactive audio and visual performances, and student and faculty video production.
Real-time interactive technology will play a lead role in Theodore and Ellsworth's interdisciplinary performance piece on Oct. 13.
For example, when a student dancer plays the computer-enhanced grand piano, the live video projection will appear agitated. A dancer's arm movement captured live on video could instantly trigger a computer-controlled cascade of piano notes or a change of lighting. The pitch of performers' speech into microphones can be analyzed by a computer, which then plays the "melody" of their voices simultaneously on the piano.
Ellsworth explained that no elements of the performance - dance, music or technology - are emphasized over the others. The result is not classified as dance or music, but rather as an interdisciplinary performance. "All of these components are making something else - some kind of alchemy occurs," she said.
The ATLAS black box provides audio and video projection capabilities that CU-Boulder has never had before, according to Theodore. "The audio system in the black box studio, combined with the multiple high-quality video projectors, allows us to create immersive environments for performances," he said. "Before ATLAS, we could put on a show with sound from two speakers. Now, we can surround an audience with sound and video, and it opens up a lot of new possibilities."
For the past seven years, Theodore and Ellsworth have taught an interdisciplinary performance class that focuses on innovative shows like those to be on display Oct. 13. The class is open to students in all majors and colleges.
This semester is the first time the class has met in the ATLAS black box studio. Two students from the class are among eight performers who were selected through auditions to participate in the ATLAS open house show.
"The idea is to make it easy for students and faculty to dream up pieces that involve technology in some way and then have an easy means of putting it all together," Theodore said. "We're trying to think about how we can make something artistically interesting with technology."
The promise of ATLAS is not just its technology and facilities but also the community of artists it will foster, Theodore said. "It's a productive environment where people understand what this new work is and how to experiment in a way that's likely to yield results you can share with people in performance in other venues."
Theodore is thrilled, he said, because ATLAS represents an invitation to students and faculty to create interdisciplinary performance. "The beautiful thing is, if you have an idea that's going to involve technology, you come here and you plug it in, essentially, and it's ready to go," Theodore said. "And that means there's that much more time for perfecting your idea."
For more information about ATLAS, visit atlas.colorado.edu. To listen to a podcast on the ATLAS Building, go to the News Center Web site at .