Shadowdance
Shadowdance takes ‘dancing in the streets’ to a whole new level. Audience members becomes performers as floodlights magnify their multi-coloured silhouette to the size of a building.
The effects get even the most reticent of dancers cutting interesting shapes. People’s shadows interact with each-other and life suddenly becomes a rainbow coloured trick of the light.
Key Info
- Multicolour shadow playground
- Floodlights magnify your shadow silhouettes
- Unlimited performance time
- Designed to work in a range of urban and other spaces
- Retro psychedelic experience (without all the hallucinations!)
- Spectators become Participants who become Performers
- Colourful and fun for any age
“Awesome art” – jacobntd on Instagram
“Wow, we all really enjoyed” – @kimchappers on Instagram
“We loved it!… thanks for creating” – @josephbentley06 on Instagram
Video gallery
Background
This commission for the Light up Leicester festival enabled us to develop an idea that we’d been toying for a while, and to present it on a grand scale. It took a whole lot of experimentation to find the right lights to get the effect, so we were very pleased that the end effect so closely matched our mock-ups.
Description
The installation blends colour and light, using colourful floodlights to magnify your shadow silhouette as it appears on a large wall.
Combine this effect with a trick of optics based on colour theory first deduced by Newton – where different colours can combine to create white light – and white light itself can be split into its components.
Technical Requirements
Darkness: Best with no direct lighting
Wall or screen: To display the silhouettes
Power: 2 x 16 Amp sockets
Footprint: 6-10m wide, 7-8m deep. Plus space for audience
Crew: self-contained crew c. 6 hours get-in, 2.5 hours de-rig
Access: small van with nearby parking
Stewards / Barriers: audience management
Flexible: Few burdens on promotor, continuous operation
Shadowdance
This piece offers audiences a shared experience with space for many household groups to maintain good social distancing. There is no direct interaction or requirement for audiences to touch anything.
People are less likely to inhale infectious particles outdoors however transmission is still possible and so maintaining social distancing and face coverings are still advised.
Depending on the nature of the event audience numbers may need to be controlled. However as the content has no defined start and ending we lessen surges in numbers and consequent pinch points.
DownloadProject Partners
A Light up Leicester commission by ArtReach, supported by Leicester City Council, BID Leicester and Arts Council England
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