ENTERTAINMENT

Woking Dance Festival, Woking Park – July 2008

Sound By Design recently provided sound for öff öff Productions project “Orbite”, staged as part of Woking Dance Festival’s “Summer Shorts” programme of events.  An aerial dance and theatre company from Bern, Switzerland, öff öff specialises in aerial group choreography on the theme of “man and monument” with Orbite being a breathtaking show involving a 17-metre high tower with spinning wings, activated by seven fearless climbing and abseiling dancers, all choreographed to music.

ORBITE is play of body weight, gravity, momentum and turning points. It is an intricate dance of supple human bodies partnering the tempo and weight of the steel. Each step on the Luftstation has consequences to each dancer on it and to the position of the Luftstation itself. There are no motors involved, it is all a question of weight and physics. Like pirates of the night the dancers court risk by climbing the narrow edges between balance and fall. Their only safety lies in judging their own limits correctly and in a safety rope connecting them to the steel construction.

The visually stunning show comprises multiple different sections, each of which can be moved around or removed dependant on weather conditions at the time of the show. These include repelling both up and down, silk work, performing in silhouette and, of course, the spinning wings themselves.

The music for the show was comprised of a mostly playback soundtrack with live vocals (sung from the top of the structure via wireless microphone!) and a live brass instrumentalist. Sound By Design installed two main towers, one either side of the Luftstation, with each one comprising three Meyer Sound MSL-4 horn-loaded, long-throw loudspeakers and two Meyer 700-HP UltraHigh-power subwoofers.  The soundtrack contained multiple surround elements and these were handled by a pair of Meyer CQ-1s each side, on smaller towers at the rear, supplemented by UPA-1Ps on either side of the field on stands.