Video collaboration technology from Polycom plays a key role in theatrical show The Infinite Bridge, which premieres tonight in the Britten Theatre at London’s Royal College of Music. The show will include four live video streams from different European cities, including:
- Dancers in MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona)
- Musicians in the Sibelius Academy (SibA) in Helsinki, playing traditional Finnish instruments
- Brass players at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen
All of them interact with performers and visuals on stage in London, and play live with an orchestra at the Royal College of Music. Visual poetry and new music and choreography will combine with digital design and projection technology to explore the original narrative, about a girl who dreams, by award-winning writer Peter Cox.
Two Masters students from the Royal College of Music conceived the idea for The Infinite Bridge when they discovered a shared ambition to explore a new form of performance and storytelling. Their idea was to allow musicians and dancers to ‘converse,’ using digital technologies on stage, to reveal a multi-layered narrative to the audience. This ground-breaking, cross-disciplinary show aims to defy physical distance and extend beyond commonly accepted concepts of theatre production, live performance, and stagecraft.
“The Royal College of Music and The Infinite Bridge team are doing exciting work at the very borders of traditional music-collaboration technology, said Jeff Rodman, a founder of Polycom. “We are thrilled to be involved in initiatives such as these, setting the tone of how music technologies are evolving and pushing the boundaries of education and collaboration”. An accomplished musician, Rodman is a long-time exponent of Polycom MusicMode technology, which is used in music education worldwide. Developed in conjunction with the Manhattan School of Music, New York, MusicMode is built into all Polycom videoconference units, and is said to convey the true sound of instruments and voices to remote listeners.
