The life of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti has returned to the United States in a powerful Broadway production called Fela!, offering an interactive experience for the audience, as well as an immersive environment brought to life by 16 Lightning 1080p large-venue projectors from Digital Projection.

The audience will view nearly 2,000 individual pieces of video such as accent messaging, backdrop textures, live video footage, and bright imagery throughout the two and a half hour presentation.

Music by Antibalas, a dance lesson by Bill T. Jones, and video projection bring a new level of immediacy to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

The story of Fela! is an account of the struggles and revelations that musician Kuti faced in the 1960s and 70s during his fight for freedom in his home country of Nigeria.

By creating a musical group called Koola Lobitos in 1961, later known as Africa 70, that mixed high life, jazz, and an afro beat, Kuti became an instant pop star and political activist. Kuti faced a significant backlash from his government and was constantly attacked and nearly jailed. The show highlights these experiences and many more, as it travels through important moments in his inspiring musical and political career.

In addition to featuring Kuti’s captivating music and the visionary choreography of Tony-Award winner Bill T. Jones, Fela! is produced by Jay-Z, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. It received 11 Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards this year.

Bringing an ambitious new show to Broadway proved to have many challenges for the entire technology staff, including video designer Peter Nigrini. In fact, the technology that Nigrini envisioned for the show did not exist five years ago when the production process began.

“There weren’t really the means to efficiently deliver that many channels of video in a theater environment, and to have the sort of flexibility that we needed and speed that we needed; all of those things didn’t exist,” said Nigrini.

Nigrini originally partnered with a projection company based in the United Kingdom called United Visual Artists (UVA), that provided a playback system known as d3. This system has been used at many rock and roll concerts for bands like U2. While UVA had a strong background in rock and roll, however, the company learned very quickly about the urgency of time in a theater environment.

“For us to build something like that, we need to gather an entire cast and an entire orchestra and an entire crew, and then all of the creative staff all in a room at the same time. That room is in the center of Manhattan and it’s really expensive. So the hours that you get all of those people in one place at one time are incredibly valuable. Speed is therefore incredibly essential,” said Nigrini. From the beginning, one the Nigrini’s biggest challenges was how he was going to create a system that could host and retrieve at any given moment a particular image among 1,999 others. “You have to build an entire system where you can keep track of all 2,000 pieces of media,” says Nigrini.

Once Nigrini and his associates created the necessary system they partnered with Digital Projection who would provide the 30,000 lumen, 1,080 pixel projectors that would bring Nigrini’s images to life.

“DP’s Lightning projectors were chosen for their stellar brightness, as well as their industry leading efficiency as they produce more lumens per watt than any high-brightness projector available today,” said Michael Bridwell, marketing manager, Digital Projection. “The hit musical uses DP’s flagship displays in so many creative ways; video footage of the production is the only accurate method to reveal the value that the projectors are supplying.” Nigrini believes that using these kinds of projectors, and a high volume of digital video imagery during a show, are trends that are becoming more and more popular.

“This is pretty much the edge. It was the edge in October, and of course six months later somebody else found the edge. But I think that systems of this scale are the new frontier,” says Nigrini.

Although Nigrini have created a system that brings as much emotional impact to the show as the story itself, the goal of the theater remains the same, according to Nigrini.

“I think the great sustenance is that all of that, whatever it might be, in the end is servicing the telling of a story. That’s what is great about the theater, because it all comes back to the question of ‘what are you doing?’ and the answer is, ‘we’re just trying to tell a story’,” Nigrini adds.

DIGITAL PROJECTION INC. Digital Projection.com
FELA! felaonbroadway.com
PETER NIGRINI nigrini.net
UNITED VIDEO ARTISTS uva.co.uk

KEY ELEMENTS / / / FOR THE END USER

“Systems of this scale are the new frontier. These kinds of projectors, and a high volume of digital video imagery during a show, are trends that are becoming more and more popular.”

“You have to build an entire system where you can keep track of all 2,000 pieces of media.” -Peter Nigrini, video designer and projectionist

Laura Esposito is an AV Technology editorial intern based in Colorado.