Live performance meets immersive technology at Laurenskerk: 2 and 4 December

For two evenings, we’re bringing together live music, performance and virtual worlds in the monumental setting of the Laurenskerk. Conversations by Paul Boereboom and Leon Rogissart and Exoplanets by Robin Coops each invite audiences into an immersive world, combining live performers and musicians with technology to create experiences that unfold both around you and inside your headset.

The works are presented as part of Lightroom Expanded, a development programme for immersive works in collaboration between IFFR, UPscaleXR and DashXR.

Conversations 

2 December | 19.30 and 21.00 | 50 min

In Conversations, a performer appears as guide and mirror, leading the audience into a virtual space that gradually opens up to encounters with oneself and with others. The performance explores the relationship between individual experience and collective perception, asking how an encounter with another person can deepen our understanding of identity and presence.

Set to the Renaissance composition Belle qui tiens ma vie by Antoine Arbeau, the performance brings different layers of time, reality and perspective together in an immersive environment. The result is a poetic exploration of curiosity, connection and the search for oneself in a world increasingly made up of overlapping realities.

Concept: Paul Boereboom & Leon Rogissart
Composition: Leon Rogissart
Performer: Sophie Prins
AV technique: Dries Himpe
Coproducers: Muziektheater Transparant, PodiumBloos & UPscaleXR

Exoplanets

4 December | 19.30 and 21.00 | 40 min

In Exoplanets, artist Robin Coops brings mixed reality and live music together in an immersive performance. Guided by Sage, Coops’ alter ego, audiences travel through augmented reality to two fictional planets: HARMONIA and VESTIGIA AETERNA. Vocals, percussion and the live organ of Laurenskerk merge with a virtual world.

Exoplanets is also the first practical application of VJAR, a new tool developed by Coops & Co, UPscaleXR and DASHXR as part of Lightroom Expanded. The tool enables virtual content to be controlled live within the audience’s headsets, supporting the development of a format that is both artistically compelling and technically repeatable and scalable.

Concept, animation & composition: Robin Coops
Vocals & synths: Sage (aka Robin Coops)
Organ: Matthijs van der Wilt
Percussion: Jonathan Bonny
Technology: Marcel Brand
Producer: Coops & Co
AR guidance: UPscaleXR
AR technology: DASHXR
VR drawings: Petra van Berkum
Costume:  Martijn Kramp

Practical information and tickets

Location: Laurenskerk, Rotterdam
Tickets: €20 / €15 for visitors under 26

2 December – Conversations
Walk-in: 19.00 | Show: 19.30
Walk-in: 20.40 | Show: 21.00
Duration: 50 minutes

4 December – Exoplanets
Walk-in: 19.00 | Show: 19.30
Walk-in: 20.40 | Show: 21.00
Duration: 40 minutes

With thanks to: Dioraphte, Gemeente Rotterdam and Laurenskerk