SEE VIDEO DOCUMENTATION HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41KjCPRucsM
Reliving the Myth of Melissani (2012) was an interactive networked project performance in the Cave Lake of Melissani in Kefalonia Greece. The project consisted of 9 collaborators including Max Kazemzadeh (Assoc. Professor Gallaudet University), Reza Safavi (Assoc. Professor WSU Pullman), Victor Diaz Berrales (Artist), Haytham Nawar (Assist. Professor American University Cairo), Wilifrido Terrazas (Professional Flutist and Composer), Carles Gutierrez (Artist), Rita Blaik (PhD Student at UCLA), and Adnan Naseem Khan (MFA Grad student at University of Texas at Dallas). These collaborators envisioned, designed, and created an interactive performance using cell phones, two MS kinects, a LAN network, two projectors, computers, 5 melissani performers, paddle boats, and the Melissani cave between 6PM and 10PM on August 10th. Visitors would descend into the earth and walk down the passage to the cave lake, where they would enter a paddle boat with a boat captain who would paddle each group of 5 to the part of the cave with the mound. Each boat was given a cell phone that connected to the cave’s internal Melissani LAN network. Each phone had a running app with 5 buttons, 1 button for each Melissani character on the mound. Once at the mound, visitors were attracted to the top of the mound where 5 dancing Melissani characters, dressed in white were projected on, and dancing to the flute music played by Pan, standing on the mound off to the right. Visual Data Projections could be seen from the top of the mound up the walls to the ceiling of the cave, where video projections of Melissani nymphs swimming underwater appear ( • Melissani Cave Myth ). Visitors in the in the boats could press the button on their phone and see a white orb appear in the belly of one of the Melissani ghosts. Once they lifted their finger from the button, the orb would shoot up the walls of the cave and create a graphic array over the top of the video of the swimming nymphs, a loud beat would sound, and a sample of pre-recorded flute phrases would be released, that Pan (Willifredo Terazas) would incorporate into his improvisational flute performance. Each time a visitor would press a button on the phone this would happen again with each respective Melissani dancer (ghost).
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