Choreoptics Concert Light Show,

Talking Lights

Choreoptics originally formed in 1971 and ran on and off for decades.

I met Jim Allison in 1971 and performed music at his theater/ club Allison Wonderland.

He mentored me and we have stayed in touch sporadically over the years so I guess Jim Allison was my only influence.

Bands I have worked with:

Jack B. Quick
Dave Somogyi
Flash to Bangtime
BL Lacerta

Choreoptics have cooperated with both Allison Wonderland and Talking Lights

Talking Lights was my original project. Obviously, the concept of an audibly communicative light source.

Choreoptics was the new and improved labeling. Physically manipulating the visual interpretation of music.

Choreoptics came to life as a project sanctioned by the University of Texas at Austin and resulted in 6 hours of college credit towards my Bachelors of Fine Arts and several well reviewed shows for the UT art Department, Eastfield College, Texas State University, and the Texas State Deaf Blind Annex.

A show i did for the Texas State School for the Deaf /Blind Annex was very cool. I had a serious sound system that allowed the kids that couldn’t hear well to feel the music and i could see the partially blind kids Pressing their eyes and hands to my rubberized cloth rear projection screen in order to see the music.

Equipment:

First screen material was frosted plastic sheeting (drop cloths) later in a booth format (imagine a black wall w a 3’x4’frosted plexiglass screen. Sort of a Wizard of Oz Man behind the curtain setup.

Later, Jim gifted me w a 5’x7’ piece of the original Allison Wonderland 15’ screen which lasted for many years.

Eventually I salvaged a 3’x 5’ piece of it and mounted it in an antique oval mirror frame. Sort of a “thru the looking glass” tribute to Allison wonderland.

That got tossed by a clueless supervisor at the school I taught at. I bought a large quantity of screen material last year and use a 3 1/2 ft circular screen as seen in the picture above and a 9’x12’ screen for larger applications.

My projectors ranged from a modified antique movie projector originally, to a carousel projector, to a 1000 watt theater projector.

Currently I use a 3600 lumen digital projector hooked to an iPad which I can use simultaneously as a music source and a fingertip control for digital slides on Keynote with various color combinations that are projected through a series of focal points and using my fingers and various crystal, glass and lucite arrays onto my rear projection screen.

I started out with one modified movie projector and evolved in a very useful high tech setup described previously.

Kent Skinner - September 2020