Delivering Dadvatar

Technology takes the stage in Co-Founders, the musical

Co-Founders, the musical, which ran at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre this spring, is set in the heart of Silicon Valley, apropos for an art piece in which technology is not only an important theme but is also a character. The heartwarming storyline is about a young coder in Oakland named Esata who hacks her way into the most competitive startup accelerator in San Francisco to save her mother’s house from the threat of gentrification. The music was wonderfully infused with hip-hop, soul, gospel, funk, jazz, and R&B, and the visuals were spectacular, the highlight of which might be the real-time-rendered avatar of the protagonist Esata’s deceased father. “Dadvatar” who appeared on stage projected in real time on a downstage holo scrim, serving as a confidant, emotional support, and technical project.

“I’ve been doing this for a long, long time,” Boulay says. “And this is probably the most complicated show I’ve ever programmed. We had so many cues. so many transitions, so many things.”

But it wasn’t your standard-issue, pre-rendered animation or projection effect. Dadvatar was a live performer offstage, rendered in Unreal Engine using motion capture and delivered to the audience in real time with all the interaction and rhythm of a live performer.

Click here to read the article