Reach for the Skies
In development (2022-)
with Radio Science Orchestra
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Reach for the Skies is a new kind of music experience that encourages women from across the world to actively take part in a performance, with the opportunity to play alongside professional musicians of the Radio Science Orchestra.
Radio Science Orchestra
The aim is to create an open forum where anyone is free to participate in a variety of ways from musical improvisations, choral contributions, sonic interventions or poetry readings. Entry is through a curated portal and all participants have the option to be visualised performing alongside the orchestra – live or virtual.
Reach for the Skies is a universal anthem to the hopes and aspirations of women everywhere, and is taken from the song-cycle ‘Women in Science’.
Designed as an immersive experience for VR and 360 degree Full Dome spherical imagery, the music uniquely responds and adapts in real-time to any external input or interventions from its on-line collaborators. Every performance, therefore, varies in content and composition.
Performers : Robyn Muse, Shaofan Wilson, Rozanna Madylus, Sally Hossack
As Reach for the Skies is inspired by four women astronauts from four different continents, we have invited talented young artists like coloratura soprano Robyn Muse, and actor/writer Shaofan Wilson, to take the challenge. Songwriter Sally Hossack will lead the vocals along with choral contributions from the community.
Image by Paul Sizer
A new language of performance
Reach for the Skies looks to the future to explore virtual and extended realities within emerging hybrid forms, where distinctions between real and fictive performance become blurred, and where a newly developed matrix can instantaneously mix and match virtual to live performers. Participants can therefore experience the sensation of performing on stage in real or synthetic forms.
This new language of performance can range from multi-user VR headsets to live full dome immersive experiences, where audiences see performers ‘in the flesh’ or within mixed technologies e.g. holography.
The physicality of the 360 domed space solves issues of scaling and the economies of touring. It also enables us to look beyond conventional audience dynamics, and interrogate a more fluid approach to performance - more in common with the dynamics of ‘promenade’ arts, themed attractions or flying theatre.
Reach for the Skies is taken from ‘Women in Science’ - one of three 20 minute song-cycles from the one hour show Rocket 3.2.1 The concept is a collaboration between composer Pip Greasley, Bruce Woolley and the Radio Science Orchestra.
coming soon…………….
