LUCIA DANCES
An Immersive Dance Theatre Project
Early Rehearsal Southern Regional College (SRC) with Maeve McGreevy
1st tests on the Dome at the Armagh Planetarium
The project has reached an advanced prototype and testing phase, with key learnings from practical experiments across multiple immersive environments and technologies
The project has progressed through significant development stages, including extensiveinvestigation at CULTVR in Wales; hands-on testing in immersive Full Dome settings at the Market Place REAL IDEAS Dome in Plymouth, and Igloo Vision in London.
Early on we collaborated with Queens University Media Lab, where motion capture experiments showed promise. However budget constraints led us in a different direction and to filming at Ulster University Media Lab’s green screen.
Working closely with dancer Maeve McGreevy, we expanded the original script into an immersive dance performance and visual storyboard.
Our process has revealed both increased complexity and new opportunities, leading to partnerships with the Armagh Planetarium and Dr Kerem Çubuk for the creation and real-time manipulation of visual elements within a 360° dome. Additionally, we have advanced sound design, recording voiceovers at SRC Banbridge and now developing spatial and sonic soundscapes with Pedro Rebelo at Queens UniversitySonic Laboratory (SARC).
Based on the life story of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia, Light Theatre Company is developing an ambitious Immersive Dance Drama.
A promising dancer in 1920’s Paris was trained by Isadora Duncan’s brother Raymond in what was known as ‘Rhythmic Dancing’, Lucia was beginning to be noticed by critics and the press and, for reasons that are not entirely clear, she stopped dancing and spent most of the rest of her life in therapy and institutions.
The project has been part funded to date by the Go Succeed programme and continues to be supported by the DfC and Future Screens NI.
Bloomsday 2025 in Szombathaly, Hungary
Szombathely is a Beautiful small town in Hungary from which Virag - the father of Leopold Bloom, the hero of James Joyce’s Ulysses, is supposed to have come. Every year the town hosts a Bloomsday festival and this year the Mayor of Szombathely invited Csilla and Alistair to join them in celebrating Bloomsday and to explore the possibility of bringing Lucia Dances to a future festival .