Prior to the start of this year’s Fantasy Faire there was mention of a ballet. I pondered whether we would see Orcs in a tutu, unfortunately that didn’t make the cut! However a ballet has been produced and can be seen on YouTube, I will embed this at the end of the post.
The ballet is set in the Faery Court sim and therefore, unsurprisingly, involves Fairies. In this case it’s a romantic tale between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. For those who are not familiar with these terms, The Seelie court are generally known to be prone to a bit of mischief but are generally well intentioned. The Unseelie court on the other hand are darker in mind and can be far more vicious in their dealings with humans and others.
However neither court are set in stone to be good or evil, or so the legend goes anyway. The production takes advantage of the virtual world setting of Second Life to make an extended stage out of the sim and is a good example of how a virtual world can be utilised for such a production.
Elico Ember is the designer behind the design and build of The Farey Court sim but many other Second Life names appear in the credits, from dancers to designers who provided outfits and accessories. What we see here is again something Draxtor Despres has been highlighting so well in his Drax Files World Makers series, collaboration in a virtual world with people from diverse backgrounds and locations working together to create a production.
Amongst the performers are : Amethyst Dogval, Aisling Sinclair, Rain Lyric, Angelina Rothmanay, Garnet Psaltrey, Kess Crystal, Tuttifrutti Sorbet and Sonya Marmurek. Amethyst Dogval also doubles as a producer with Terra Volitant as Technical Director and Aisling Sinclair and Saffia Widdershins taking the joint role of Editor. Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/ is credited as supplying the music.
In terms of Second Life designers providing accessories and time to the production, Alia Baroque of Fallen Gods provides the skins, Nephilaline Protagonist of The Muses provides the silks and jewellery, Brunhild Uriza of Etoile provides the shoes, Siya Suen of of Illusions provides the masks, ears, wings and accessories.
The running time is less than seven minutes, so if you have got a few spare minutes it’s worth a look and as I said earlier, this is a good example of virtual world collaboration and shows a use case that is not highlighted by the mainstream press at all. A good job all round.