Imagine that for a moment.
The Vision
Borne out of a collaborative vision between composer Matthew Ferraro and Rapt Co- Founder Bertie Sampson and with nothing predetermined except a desire to collaborate, the theme of water quickly emerged as the emotional anchor to this performance.
Water’s rhythms – its stillness, turbulence, and renewal – became the foundation for an immersive performance that could capture the sensation of standing inside a downpour. The challenge was to merge sound, motion, and visuals into one interconnected experience, housed within the infinite canvas of the 360° Market Hall Dome.
The Creation
Working between Los Angeles and London, the team crafted a piece where each discipline drove the other forward. Ferraro’s compositions shaped the atmosphere, while real-time visuals responded directly to the body.
To preserve a human and organic sensibility, choreographer and dancer Nikki Watson was brought in, her movements captured through a Perception Neuron motion capture suit. These live inputs fed into custom-built Notch Blocks inside TouchDesigner, where visuals unfurled like rain itself, sometimes delicate, sometimes overwhelming. On the day before premiere, dancer and technologist fine-tuned their connection, fusing gesture and image into a seamless dialogue.
The Moment
Premiering at Fulldome UK – a Plymouth-based festival dedicated to all things spherical RAIN took over Market Hall Dome, enveloping audiences in cascading layers of sound, motion, and light. The dancer’s movements became rainfall, the music its atmosphere, the dome its horizon.
For the audience, the result was both meditative and visceral. What began as an experiment grew into a performance to captivate its first audience and inspire the team to continue evolving the work and exploring new stages for this immersive downpour.
