The Space Cadet
2021
Vovousa, Greece

This project included the development of lighting design as part of the set and staging of a dance performance, to create a fully autonomous, pop-up style performance at The Vovousa Festival.

Darc Awards 2021, 4THplace for ‘The Space Cadet’
Concept/Choreography/Original Music/Design: Chloe Aligianni
Performer: Gian Aggelos Apostolidis Isaak (aka Fuerza Negra)
Co-creation of movement material: Chloe Aligianni& Gian Aggelos Apostolidis Isaak (aka Fuerza Negra)
Lighting Design: Anna Sbokou
Set & helmet construction: Yannis Aligiannis (XWorks)
Text compostion: Katerina Kataki
Narration: Thanasimos
Electrician: Nikos Iliopoulos
Technician: Giwrgos Antonopoulos
Sound mixing: Ellen Curtis
Scientific consultants: astrophysicist Dr.ThanassisAkylas (National Observatory of Athens), astronaut trainer Dr. Mindy Howard (Inner Space Training)
Music mentor: Lee Boyd Allatson
Project photos: Eleni Papaioannou, Gavriil Papadiotis, Xenia Tsilochristou
Costume sponsors: Ministry of Concrete, Safe Work LTD
Photography: Xenia Tsilochristou

A Third Planet production
A project in partnership with Flux Laboratory Athens
Funded by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports
Supported by The Croft Residency

Concept:

“The Space Cadet”, a contemporary dance performance installation by Third Planet, is a poetic journey into space, a cosmic quest of a solitary traveller, the astronaut. Audience and performer are constantly transported to new places, cover large distances and discover new frontiers. The performance is opening up a dialogue between art and science, while stimulating curiosity about the cosmos in relation to the planet we call ‘home’.

The protagonist exists within a tailor-made light installation which sometimes feels like a home, a vehicle, a spaceship from the future, and other times like ‘a prison’, a game or his entire universe. In every performance, dancer Aggelos Apostolidis (aka Fuerza Negra) is activating through movement the in-situ installation, while interacting with the ‘illuminating landscape’ designed by lighting designer Anna Sbokou. Architectural lighting and soundscapes create transitions in space and time where past, present and future merge.

Choreographer Chloe Aligianni, borrows elements from astronaut training and reimagines space travel conditions. She converses with history and choreographs with an electro pop attitude.

“The Space Cadet” is a pop up performance, with the set installed in both indoor and outdoor spaces, that has been created with the logic of a performance that travels and lands in unusual locations, every time somewhere different. The lighting design was developed and realised with those restrictions in mind, as self-contained installation. Integration, portability and adaptiveness to accommodate the variation of locations, conditions and movement was a key element of the design.

For the ‘satellite wings’, RGBW LED profiles are edge-lighting the large polycarbonate panels, that were specifically engraved with a grid to imitate satellite solar panels. The underside of the panels’ frame was also illuminated with 4000K LED profiles, giving a subtle halo effect, ‘scanning’ the black floor of the structure. Additional colour-changing LED profiles were installed on the vertical metal structure to illuminate movement onto the cubicle and on/in the metal structure itself, meanwhile enhancing the three-dimensional structure. The interior of the cubicle was illuminated by 2500K LED strip and miniature spots around the cubicle frame were used to highlight and isolate performance areas around and on top of the cubicle.

All luminaires were IP65 and individually controlled with DMX drivers and a programming control desk. Special attention was given to the installation of the wiring that was fed through the cubicle to the central pivoting point of the whole structure, in order to allow its free rotation during the performance and all connections were fitted with IP68 connectors for safe and easy taking down/setting up of the structure at each outdoor venue.

For the optimum effect of the light installation, locations chosen had to have minimum light pollution so the performance can stand alone in the nightscape.

The performance landed in locations like the TheVovousa Festival, a rular setting near the valley of Aoos in the historic village of Zagori, at the National Observatory of Athens and at Flux Laboratory in Athens.

Video trailer: youtube