Aether

Aether was conceived as a collaboration between the Interactive Telecommunications Program and Integrated Digital Media Program at NYU, and was included as a part of ITP’s Experiments in Storytelling initiative supported by Google. The project was created and developed by Ruudy Liu, Lajune McMillian, Sergio Mora-Diaz, and Kat Sullivan using Unreal Game Engine to create the 3D live visuals and Perception Neuron suits to track the movements of the dancers. With Aether, the team seeks to create an immersive live experience through movement, interactive 3D graphics and music, crafting a cohesive narrative that juxtaposes ancestral knowledge with cutting edge technology. Aether is a live Motion Capture Dance Performance designed and choreographed from the ancestral use of sacred geometry and the embodied elements: water, fire, earth and wind. The dancers’ movements are tracked and translated to 3D avatars emitting different particle systems in real time, based on the visual properties and behavior of each element. For the latest version of the piece, the team collaborated with composers Darren Solomon and Alon Ilsar, dancers Alison DeFranco and Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone, to showcase the work at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.