Something unique is coming to town: for the first time in years, the ZERO G SkyDancers will be performing. Clear your schedule.
Why do I say "unique"? Some background: during the first decade or so of Second Life, a notable contingent of artists squeezed every drop of juice they could out of the orange and the new features that were periodically added, in order to discover its capabilities and produce art that was "impossible in real life." It was an experimental art movement of sorts, since artists really were experimenting with the technology. Some of results were nutty, some hilarious, some fascinating, some surreal, some made of microprims, some filling a sim as wide and high as it could go, some made mainly of sound, some mainly scripted, some interactive, some crummy, some beautiful. For me, such ImpIRL work has always been among the very best art SL could offer. What's the point of doing the same kind of stuff in SL that you can do in RL? How unadventurous! But most of the ImpIRL artists slowly exited SL, and very little of it is still made.
Among the beautiful and fascinating works were the performances by the ZERO G SkyDancers, whose performers, wearing costumes large enough to be seen from afar, flew around and through a giant installation, to music, and presenting a story. In RL we might call it Tanztheater (dance-theater), but at an exceptionally large scale, and with flying more than half a kilometer above. You won't get that in RL. Heck, I bet you yourself haven't flown in SL in well over a month.
The last SkyDancer production was in 2014. [EDIT: Dan tells me the SkyDancers also had a mixed-reality performance in 2017.] The director, DanCoyote Antonelli -- DC Spensley in RL -- essentially left SL a year or two later, or in any case I didn't see him around much, though a year or two ago he popped in and I mentioned missing the SkyDancers. Now he's returned with a new production titled Come Fly With Us. Here's the description in the notecard publicity:
Come Fly With Us features the ZERO G SkyDancers who perform an hour of in-flight choreography inside a sprawling three kilometer stage set. Dan invited five, special, guest artists to create individual levels of art, each artist built a 500 meter environment for the production. Each 'SkyDance show' features experimental stage sets that do things not possible in the physical world, combined with mood altering musical scores written exclusively for the production.
Performance dates and times are (SLT):
- Friday, June 16 @ 9:00am
- Monday, June 19 @ 3:00pm
- Sunday, June 25 @ 10:00am
Performance time is 1 hour.
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SLEA6/122/130/449
Some advice: crank your computer up as far as it can go -- high draw distance, every other graphics setting your computer can stand, and all sound sliders to the max.
Open up your calendar, grab a couple friends, and see something you won't get every day.
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Come Fly With Us production credits:
The ZERO G SkyDancers: Buffy Beale, Janjii Rugani, Pielady Smalls, Shiloh Emmons, Sunset Quinnell, Tatiana Kurri, Wytchwhisper Sadofsky
