Total Dance Theatre

A virtual reality installation for humankind and machinery

What is the human in the high-tech age? What role do we and the machines that surround us play? “Total Dance Theatre” deals with these questions on the basis of the development of artificial intelligence in the form of an immersive virtual reality experience

With VR glasses visitors immerse themselves in a spectacular stage construction. They begin to design their own dance machine, which is used to run through a dance choreography which they can influence themselves in the beginning. An intertwining of human-made choreography, personal intervention and machine algorithm result here in always new, always more complex forms of dance and movement in the space. The experience is holistic in effect: The combination of art and technology, the interaction of dance, scenography, costume design and sound design with the most modern digital technology produce a fascinating artistic world of total theatre.

As an installation staged in the room, video projects from the virtual stage construction on the real installation connect both worlds, while also making the virtual experience accessible for viewers standing outside. Projections from the backstage area of the virtual space introduce visitors to the installation.

“Total Dance Theatre” is inspired by Oskar Schlemmer’s stage experiments, whose dancer essence was the starting point for the development of the dance machines, and Walter Gropius’ ideas of the total theatre. Virtual reality as a technological format that guarantees immersion, and picks up on the concept of allowing the viewers to immerse themselves in what’s happening on the stage.

Idea, concept and implementation Diana Schniedermeier and Maya Puig
Choreography Richard Siegal
Scenography and technology Artificial Rome
Composition and sound design Lorenzo Bianchi-Hoesch
Costumes Dirk Hoffmann, Nico Schwenke
Dancers (Ballet of Difference) Margarida Neto, Claudia Ortiz Arraiza, Corey Scott-Gilbert, Diego Tortelli
Voice Blixa Bargeld

Lead VR creators Patrik de Jong, Dirk Hoffmann, Maya Puig
Lead technologist Torsten Sperling, Sebastian Hein
3D artist Nico Schwenke, Christian Rambow 
Technologists Dennis Timmermann, Hui-Yuan Tien
Animators Dana Würzburg, Torsten Sperling
Choreography programming Torsten Sperling
Sound design Victor Audouze
Installation architecture Hinnerk Dedecke
Motion capture facilitators Mimic Productions
Project management Thorsten Schwarck, Jochen Watral, Kristin Sperling

An Interactive Media Foundation and Filmtank project in cooperation with Artificial Rome, produced as part of the BAUHAUS SPIRIT project, funded by the Bauhaus heute fund of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes and Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg.

(Shedhalle: VR installation, please register first)