MVN was used to its full advantage during a live theater performance by Belgian artist Praga Khan

Praga Khan

For more then a decade, Praga Khan (aka Maurice Engelen) has moved dance floors all over the world, first as a DJ, and later as an artist. Starting at the beginning of the 90’s with albums like ‘Lust’ and ‘Lords of Acid’, Hollywood became aware of their abilities in song writing. And after the music they scored in ‘Basic Instinct’, they were asked to write music for several box office successes such as ‘Sliver’, ‘Bad Lieutenant’, ‘Strange Days’, ‘The Spy who Shagged Me’ and many more. They even wrote a full album under the name The Immortals for the then #1 video game Mortal Kombat.

Having accomplished pure music, Praga Khan wanted to embark on something new. They launched an ambitious theater tour, where they created a platform for the many art forms the band has been connected with over the years. The music of Praga Khan, performed live, in specially adapted versions, many being classical arrangements, will be the back-bone of a spectacular performance, integrating video-art, ballet, fashion, painting, performing arts and more.

After having two sold-out theater tours, Praga Khan launched a third innovative show: Frame by Frame, Where Art Meets Technology. From 25th of October 2007, the show is brought to 35 theaters in Belgium and The Netherlands.

Frame by Frame
 With the theater show Frame by Frame, Praga Khan is trying to create new dimensions within the cultural landscape. Not only is technology an enrichment to the different forms of art but technology also helps to bring music, dance, theater and other artistic performances to the audience in many different ways. During the show Praga Khan entertains the crowd, with integration of different musical and artistic performances. Several innovative technologies will be used such as: intelligent clothing, motion capture, innovative 3D projections, avatars, virtual worlds and more.

With intelligent clothing, Praga Khan is pointing out to the MVN inertial motion capture suit. “For me it’s unthinkable that this is possible, the technology is incredible. You can see Inja dancing with her real-time 3D character in the background who’s doing the exact copy of her dancing”, said Maurice Engelen during the première in Antwerp, Belgium on 25th October 2007.

Xsens Technologies B.V. cooperated with the Belgium-based Eyetronics, who are specialized in high-quality 3D acquisition services and systems that enable faster production of 3D models. The 3D face scan of Praga Khan is also part of Eyetronics’ speciality.

The 3D body scans of Eyetronics were brought to life by the movements of dancer Inja who was wearing the MoCap suit MVN. The crowd was astonished by the real-time movements of the virtual character that was broadcasted on two big screens. See pictures to the right.

Eyetronics
 Eyetronics ares specialists in 3D scanning, which they can present as a service or as a hardware product. Dirk Callaerts is managing director of Eyetronics and he is really enthusiastic about the input of MVN in the Frame by Frame show: “From the moment I contacted Xsens about this, I really had the feeling that we had to add this to the show. And after seeing it in action, Maurice also was convinced the show needed MVN. And eventually the system gave us more possibilities than we could have wished for!”

Eyetronics has obtained its success in a wide range of entertainment applications, including complex visual effects for feature films, television and commercials, realistic character generation for computer games. Eyetronics’ 2005 slate of films includes the highly anticipated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman, Racing Stripes, Blade Trinity, The Brothers Grimm, The Land of Zorro, and many others.