Royal Opera House sings Unusual praises
- Details
Sarah Tatham, exhibitions manager at the Royal Opera house explains: "We approached Leon Ingram, Unusual's rigging project manager, in March 2018 to discuss the best way to hang the scrims. A principally artistic endeavour, the scrims required a technically complex hang and design. Unusual Rigging fed into the concept and generally advised us on the size of the scrims, the fixing methods and the installation."
Unusual has worked with the Royal Opera House itself and two of its design studios (Skellon Studio and Studio Eger) in the past. "Unusual is so well known in the industry we were very comfortable working with them from the word go. Our design studios developed a concept and Leon came on site to provide technical advice generally on installation and more specifically on fixing methodology. We supplied detailed drawings and the Unusual team developed the fixing methods and contributed to the paperwork for change of use of the track," explains Tatham.
As with most projects Unusual finds itself involved with, there were numerous challenges - not least because the area was largely a building site whilst still being open to the public for performances, making access difficult. The track had to be approved for use for an artistic installation, rather than solely to provide access to the ceiling lights. The installation had to work going up and down the escalator from outside, and with the lighting already provided. Tatham adds: "Artistically, as well as identifying the right ballet and performers; we had to find the best size, location and number of scrims, ensuring the layering effect visually and the right lift artistically, as well as art-working the film stills for colour and background to provide maximum dramatic effect. And then . . . we had to hope that the finished result was worth the investment."
The result is 10 scrims (a semi-transparent theatrical voile), suspended from a track in the ceiling over an escalator. They are 2.20 metres wide and of staggered depth. The shortest is 2.7 metres deep. The longest is 7.4 metres deep. They show a vertical lift from The Royal Ballet's resident choreographer Wayne McGregor's 2018 ballet Yugen, performed by Royal Ballet dancers Calvin Richardson and Joseph Sissens.
(Jim Evans)
