You Get To Wear Chanel At This One-Of-A-Kind Ball
Renowned choreographer Blanca Li is bringing her multi-sensorial theatrical show Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li to Singapore. Get ready for an elevated experience that combines fashion, music, dancing and virtual reality technology.
Legendary choreographer and dancer Blanca Li has worked with everyone from Beyonce to Pedro Almodovar, and she's currently in town for her one-of-a-kind experience: Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li (The Parisian Ball By Blanca Li).
Spaniard Blanca Li is the consummate cultural multi-hyphenate: she's a well-respected choreographer, dancer, filmmaker and actress with a prolific CV stacked with names like Chanel, Beyonce, Pedro ALmodovar, Coldplay and more.
Taking place in a studio near Mediapolis, Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li is an award-winning, multi-sensorial experience conceptualised by Li that combines fashion (more on this later), music, dance, storytelling and most of all, virtual reality (VR) technology. While VR experiences can often come across as gimmicky, here it's been refined and taken to the next level - Li's version uses HTC Vive Focus 3, HTC Vive trackers and Wi-Fi streaming.
One of the many fantastical sights you can expect to experience at Le Bal de Paris de Blanca Li.
What all this means is that the VR experience is more seamless than ever before - you get to see your virtual hands and legs move as your physical limbs do. What's more, a group of up to 10 participants can simultaneously interact with each other virtually - and in real time too.
How participants at Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li look like (in real life) with the VR gear on.
Once you've got the VR gear on (a belt, headset and four bracelets around the wrists and ankles that weigh about 1.5kg in total), you're transported into a fantastical version of Paris, where you'll journey through many astonishing landscapes, including a grand ballroom, hedge mazes, a garden party, across a lake on a boat, a cabaret show and more.
The visuals are top-notch.
Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li is a treat not just for tech lovers but fashion enthusiasts too - you'll get to select from a group of 15 Chanel designs; Li worked with the French maison to create custom outfits for this experience.
As befitting the experience of attending a ball set in Paris, the outfits designed by Chanel are black-tie (here's your chance to don a Chanel ballgown) and sport familiar house codes like the white camellia motif and sparkly tweedy jackets. There are other Chanel icons too beyond the fashion; catch the familiar scent of Chanel N°5 when walking through the hedge maze, for instance.
Add the wind blowing in your hair and real-life dancers taking up the lead roles of Adele and Pierre (the couple whose love story is the plotline for Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li) and it all makes for a deeply immersive experience.
We're not kidding - you might find yourself a tad disoriented after exiting the 50-minute show and while the technology is still in its infancy, it did suggest that people being fully plugged into virtual worlds (a la The Matrix) is a future possibility.
Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li was brought here by Singapore Street Festival and it'll take place March 2 to March 17, at Infinite Studios, #02-15, 23 Media Circle. Tickets are priced at $73 for weekdays (Sunday through Thursday) and $87 for weekends (Friday and Saturday). Get your tickets here.