Jessica Nupen, a South African choreographer, living in Hamburg, trusted in Wilhelm Disbergen and Hippotizer Rackoon Media Server for her production of Don’t Trust the Border, which ran at Kampnagel, in Hamburg, Germany, during January this year. Kampnagel is one of Germany’s largest independent production venues for the performing arts.

Don’t Trust the Border explores the way in which different types of borders and boundaries impinge on our everyday lives, and the implication this has for the simple, human concepts of trust and openness. The current global political climate presents borders as dynamic markers that can emerge, disappear, or re-emerge, as having a fluid, transitional character, functioning both as geographic boundaries and internal zones of negotiation. How does understanding the arbitrariness of borders as penetrable, vacillating, and changing constructs allow us to negotiate, legitimise, and ultimately modify them? In Nupen’s hands, the fixed becomes permeable, and the viewer’s expectations and traditional ways of seeing are riotously subverted.

With a Rackoon in his suitcase, Wilhelm Disbergen set off from South Africa to Hamburg as the lighting, set, and AV designer for the production. “I used the Hippotizer Rackoon Media Server as it was the only one of my three Hippotizers that would fit into my carry-on luggage – I was petrified that it might get knocked or damaged in cargo,’ said Wilhelm.

Unusual props were complemented by funky costumes by Joel Jansen van Vuuren, well known for his unconventional costumes of South African band Die Antwoord. The graphic artwork which was projected was specially created by visual artist Peter Mammes.

“The production piece was partly rehearsed in Johannesburg and then in Hamburg,’ explains Wilhelm. “It was covered in the German daily newspaper, Hamburger Abendblatt, who flew a journalist out to South Africa to see an early preview of the piece before we all flew to Germany. Don’t Trust the Border was incredibly well received. We had full houses for all but one performance. For most of the shows, the audience couldn’t stop applauding afterwards. I really came home very happy.’

Using Hippotizer Rackoon Media Server, Wilhelm was supplied with a Display Port to HDMI connector that fed stills, video, and mapping through a 20k Ansi Lumens Panasonic with a 0.8:1 short throw lens from the Front of House position. “With this production, we did something unique and placed the audience on all four sides of the dance area. We had four enormous sharkstooth curtains on tracks that would close off any side at specific moments. The video mapping was on all the sides and the floor, as well as on the front curtain. The wonderful graphics artwork was inverted so that the white line work featured more prominently than conventional black on white drawings.’

The Green Hippo Rackoon Media Server was linked to the lighting desk, and Wilhelm had the use of six Claypaky Alpha Profile 800 ST, modern moving beam shapers. “The wonderful thing is that having the enormous mapped surfaces enabled me to wow the dance audience who were used to more conventional or subdued productions. The reviews that came out were sensational, and even the director of Kampnagel took photographs of the lighting and video mapping. “Rarely does one see so much creativity in such performances, so much flourishing fantasy in combination with a sophisticated choreography, lighting design and dramaturgy,’ reported tanznetz.de, one of Germany’s most respected dance magazines.

“I love what the Hippotizer can do,’ ended Wilhelm. “It allows me to paint with images just as you are able to paint with light. The amazing ability to structure images and video – like moving lights – means that you can structure a composition with images, and compliment that structure with light. Painting with light and video.’

He was excited to work in the same venue where some theatre legends such as Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Robert Lepage, Arianne Mnouchkine, Rosas, and Dumb Type had worked before.

The next outings for his Hippotizers are the mega-musical Freedom – the Musical (in which he plans to use live video feed from a drone), at The South African State Theatre, and the musical The Wiz, at the Joburg Teatre.