To Dai For, Part Two

©Raphael Olivier courtesy of Stufish Entertainment Architects

Scenic designer Alicia Tkacz, architect and production designer at the London, UK-based Stufish Entertainment Architects, brought the exterior design into the interior of the Wanda Group’s Dai Show Theatre in Xishuangbanna, China, when she created the sets for The Dai Show, as directed by Franco Dragone. Tkacz reports that, for the first stage of the project, approximately one year, the Stufish team was meeting regularly with the client Wanda, Dragone, and theatre consultants from Auerbach Pollock Friedlander in Beijing, initially for architecture-focused meetings. The result is a 1,183-seat theatre, three-quarters in the round, with a keyhole, or gateway, leading to a huge, mysterious space behind the pool. Be sure to read To Dai For, Part One and more about the Dai Show Theatre in Chinese Dragone.

Technical Challenges

For Kjell Peersman, production technical director of The Dai Show, logistics in China were also a challenge. “The biggest advantage we had in building the theatre and the show at the same time is that the designers of the theatre and the scenic designers were the same: Stufish,” he explains.  “So any set that was invented and built fit immediately in the space, both physically and aesthetically. However, putting up a show this size in such a remote part of China is a logistic nightmare. Transport, interventions, and spare parts take a lot of time to get on site and also quite simple stuff—bolts or wood filler—cannot be purchased locally and has to be flown in.”

Many local suppliers had little idea what the team was doing and delivered low-quality material and then were amazed how fast it was broken. “Dragone’s TSE/THD department had a lot of input in the choice of gear, although local brands were sometimes chosen to fit in the limited budget we had to put up a show of this size,” Peersman adds. “During the two years before the opening of the show, regular creative sessions were held involving the complete group of designers and creative staff. In that way, we were able to have a big impact on the positions of all technical systems in the space.”

©Raphael Olivier courtesy of Stufish Entertainment Architects

And once again the water plays a role. “Dragone has built a vast reputation of creating water-based shows and has developed an enormous know-how for all the challenges related to having water on stage,” notes Peersman. “First of all, it is not only getting the water on and off stage at the required moments, but also the quality and temperature of the water is of the highest importance, since the artists are in it for almost half of the show. A nice, hot pool for the artists means that there are a lot of other consequences, such as moisture in the auditorium—the temperature on stage has to be higher than that in the audience—and unexpected airflow that influences the atmospherics used in the show. Also, the choice of materials, paint, and fabrics for sets and costumes is determined by the wet environment.”

A large crew is required to run this show with its more than 60 performers. “In the run up to opening night, there was a great cooperation between the production department and their dedicated crew and the operations crew, which runs the show now on a daily basis,” explains Peersman, who lists the running crew as comprising four automation, eight rigging, four sound, four special effects, ten lighting and projection, nine carpenters, 15 wardrobe, and four stage management. “Together with maintenance, ushers, catering, and administration, The Dai Show Theatre is the daily workplace for more than 200 people,” he adds.

Lighting designer Olivier Legendre, who previously designed Taboo, a show directed by Dragone in Macau, is not a stranger to working with water. “You do not light the water, which is transparent, but use the reflections created by it,” he says. “This is no more complicated than any other reflective material, but you do have to find the proper direction for the light.”

Reflections Of Light And Video

©Raphael Olivier courtesy of Stufish Entertainment Architects

Legendre points out that the show utilizes a lot of video-projected décor on the floor, and as a result, “we tried as much as possible to work with the video team, to match colors, levels, and the mix of gobos and images,” he notes. With Tkacz’s large “dragon roots” as a permanent presence on the set, Legendre designed the show around them, “to make them look mysterious and a little magical at times and, at other times, simply natural. I also often light the fabric cut in the shape of roots to project shadows on the ground near the entrance to the stage with the wash lights,” he notes.

The acrobatic numbers are linked by transitions during which the décor for the next number is installed, with the show broken down into four acts and an introduction. “The Dai Show Theatre is like a superb circus tent that houses an enchanted forest in which a young man meets a beautiful princess acrobat,” explains Legendre, who programmed the show himself on an MA Lighting grandMA2 console, knowing that the show would be run by someone else later. “Several Chinese board operators take turns behind the console, after being trained by Xavier, the head of lighting for the Wanda Group, and by me for the show. It works out very well. The entire show is programmed with a sequence of about 150 cues. Certain parts use timecode, although most of it is manual, but the most complicated thing in China is not speaking Chinese.”

The video content design for The Dai Show is by Patrick Neys, who has also worked with Dragone in the past. The technical side of things was handled by VYV from Montreal, whose team included video programmers Alexis Rivest and Tommy St-Yves, as well as VYV co-founder Emric Epstein. The video system comprises nine Christie DS+14K-M projectors, each on a moving platform, and as Epstein explains, “each projector has a camera, responsible for the calibration of the projector.” This is a process invented by VYV, used for the first time at Dragone’s Han Show last year.

©Raphael Olivier courtesy of Stufish Entertainment Architects

The cameras are Natural Point Prime 13 auto-calibration cameras. “Each projector is automatically aligned by software in the camera,” says Epstein. “The projector can be pointed in any direction and stay aligned with realtime calibrations. This is only the second show in the world to use this technique.” There are also nine Prime 41 motion-capture cameras, installed permanently to track infrared tags that the actors wear via the Albion tracking system, also developed by VYV.

Neys’ content creation team had six artists on site during rehearsals, with a system to create the 3D motion graphics that serve as a canvas for the entire show. “They sent a secondary video output from this system to the Photon media servers, which capture it as a live video feed and can assign it to any projection surface,” explains Epstein. “The advantage is that they can create content and see the result in realtime on the real surfaces, without the hassle of rendering files, copying to the NAS, and importing the content in the media servers. Even though these steps are optimized, and this is what we do for final delivery, creating content in realtime without any latency or manual extra process is a huge time saver and provides an incomparable freedom in creativity. Also the Photon media server offers very advanced realtime image processing, compositing, editing, and color correction tools, so on a normal creation day, you would have Patrick Neys designing content from [Adobe] Photoshop or [Autodesk] Combustion directly on one surface, with the Photon programmer working simultaneously on other projection surfaces or elements.”

The video programmers had numerous roles during the rehearsals, as well. “They are in charge of integrating the projection system and aligning cameras and projectors, when something has moved or lamps are changed,” notes Epstein. “They program the timeline, import media, and prepare all cues to automate the show as much as possible, and finally train the local crew for operation and long-term system support. They work under direct supervision of the content designer and are the link between the technical and artistic aspects for the video.”

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