The boundary between our online and IRL selves is increasingly blurred, so why not boogie with a virtual doppelgänger? That’s exactly the concept Sila Sveta explores in Circle, their latest dance-meets-tech marvel. The multimedia design company based between Moscow and Los Angeles—also behind projection mapped dance piece Levitation and the Epicenter light performance—partnered with choreographer Anna Abalikhina to create the piece, in which dancers perform with their digitized selves.
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Sila Sveta filmed dancers in front of a green screen in advance, then staged the piece live with the same dancers. The effect blurs the line between video and performance. "The main task for us was to erase the barrier between the real and virtual dancers," Alexander Us, Sila Sveta producer and co-founder, tells The Creators Project. Hidden gaps in the curved LED screen and a rotating stage further muddle the senses, making it seem like dancers slip into and out of the digital realm.
The performance, officially titled the Alcatel Idol 4 Performance, premiered at a smartphone unveiling in Russia. The concept for Circle, developed by Sila Sveta's Ilya Balakin, originated with its circular moving platform and evolved to include synchronized video. Sila Sveta pre-recorded Abalikhina’s choreography, then edited the footage so dancers would appear to float, glide, and glitch alongside bold colors and shapes. The performers rehearsed extensively to nail the timing, so the footage would match the live dance. "We spent days on location to synchronize the graphics and dancers," Us says.Now, you can check out the fruits of Sila Sveta's labor in full, below:
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