A ballet of luminous figures

A Laser Ballet at the UFG Planetarium

By Conceição Rodrigues

A show,completely different from all that has ever been seen in Goiânia is coming to town. It has nothing to do with Teather, Music, Cinema or anything alike. It is the Cosmic Laser Concert created through a single beam of laser, which passes through an optic/electronic complex, creating tridimensional figures that move in rhythm, composing a real ballet of figures.

Produced by Lucila Oliveira and operated by Soraya Bittencourt, this show of lights and colors opens tonight, in this city, and will stay on for 15 days in the Planetarium of the Federal University of Goiás, located at the Muritama Park. The opening sessions will happen today at 10h, 11h, 18h, 19h and 20h. Prices are Cr$1,000 for students and Cr$1,500 for the public in general.

During the coming days, the show will run from Thursdays through Sundays. On Thursdays and Fridays the sessios will run at 20 and 21h; on Saturdays at 10, 11, 16, 17, 18 and 21h. On Sundays it will run on the same hours as today.

The applications of the laser beam, term adopted from the British abreviation - Light Amplificaton by Stimulated Emission of Radiation - have for long abandoned the field of science fiction. Eventhough its application in Brazil is still incipient, in USA it is already used to cut cardboard for packages, to perforate nursing bottle nipples and for other more sophisticated military and medical applications, as well as in telecomunications, etc. But, not even its creator, Dr. Theodore Harold Maiman could foresee that one day his finding could also be used for entertainment, in a highly informative show, where is added the contact with informartion, the techonology and lots of criativity on the part of the operator Soraya Bitencourt, once she guarantees that - none of the shows will be similar to other, as everything is produced alive, created without tapes or any similar material.

"Everything happens according to the public's reactions", and from there, sun, cosmic storms, clouds and a series of other effects are created. The equipment used in the show is worth 200 thousand dollars and there are only other five of them in the entire world and they are stationary in the Planetariums of Tokyo, Paris, London, New York and Los Angeles. This equipment, owned by the Venezuelan company Willy Feliu Productions, has been touring Latin America during the last 4 years and is now in Brazil for fifteen months.

The show opened in Rio and stayed in town for 10 months. From there it went to Porto Alegre (3 months), Brasília (45 days) and in Goiânia it will stay for 15 days, depending on the public's acceptance, and afterwards will follow to São Paulo. This certainly is an unique show and a highly artistic one. A type of interaction among electronics, art, music and lots of criativity with the electronic component that discloses the possibilities for the use of the laser, and that, in Soraya Bittencourt's opinion, will be the toy of the future, in substitution to PCs, not mentioning its utilization for open space painting and sculpturing. The production reminds the Goianian public to the fact that the access to Muritama Park will be by the gate at Av. Contorno which gives straight access to the Planetarium.