20 February 2015, 00:00
On December 20, 2014, a spectacular theatrical event celebrated its premiere in Wuhan, China: the Han Show. The principal performers behind the scenes were three huge robot arms and sophisticated control technology from Siemens.
A 30-meter-long bolt of lighting sweeps through the hall and dissolves into a thousand images, while acrobats leap from breathtaking heights into a shimmering pool of w,ater from which colorful fountains shoot into the air. Stages and galleries are transformed as if by magic. The Han Show is a two-hour extravaganza of color, motion, and music. The spectacular theatrical event celebrated its premiere on December 20, 2014, in Wuhan, a city of 8.3 million inhabitants at the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers in central China. The show sets a new benchmark. “There were three top shows worldwide before 2014: O and Le Rêve in Las Vegas and The House of Dancing Water in Macao,” says Franco Dragone. “Now there is only one — the biggest of them all: the Han Show.”
Dragone, who is an Italian theater director and a member of the Cirque du Soleil, knows this better than anyone else, because he himself designed the three shows, which he now plans to outdo in Wuhan. In cooperation with the British star architect Mark Fisher (who passed away in 2013) and the costume designer Tim Yip, Dragone spent four years preparing a comprehensive work of art that merges the stage show with the surrounding space. Affectionately referred to as the “Red Lantern” by locals, the Han Show Theater has become another Wuhan landmark, next to the nearly 1,200-year-old Yellow Crane Tower. Illuminated by an interplay of reddish lights, the building, which was inspired by a paper lantern, is reflected in the waters of East Lake, the largest urban lake in the world. Theater has a long tradition in Wuhan, which is the birthplace of the Han opera, one of the key predecessors of Peking opera.
Secret Stars: Mobile Screens
Many aspects of the show deal with water, an element that is ubiquitous in Wuhan. Besides a stage-filling pool and 80 performers, the show also features a group of secret stars: three gigantic LED screens that are almost as wide as the entire stage. When the show begins, the audience quickly notices that the screens don’t just serve as a backdrop, but instead take on an active role in the story. Within seconds, the ten-meter-wide displays swerve upward to project images onto the ceiling or lie down behind the pool to create a visual extension of the water surface. There are seemingly no limits to these movements. The screens are sometimes arranged in a long line through which a bolt of lighting zaps into the water, while at other times they rotate like huge leaves in an imaginary storm.
Instead of huge hands, the screens are moved by three robotic arms — the largest ever used for a stage show. These arms are similar to the industrial robots used to weld metal sheets in the automotive sector, for example. The main difference is that the arms are much bigger, because each screen weighs 8 metric tons and this weight has to be moved up to 28 meters across the stage within seconds. Despite the weight the arms have to carry, they are almost as precise as their counterparts in the factory. The steel arms’ transport paths must not deviate by more than two centimeters from the predetermined choreography or the screens would collide. To ensure such precision, the control system has to coordinate six joints, 12 motors, and 14 axles on each robot — for a total of 42 axles. “This is achieved by Siemens Motion Control,” says Renrong Hu, Chief Engineer of Stage Control Systems at Wanda Group, which is the company that built the Han Show Theater and produced the event. “Although we looked at various products, only Siemens offered a precise multi-axle control system that is easy to operate.”
The Han Show Theater in a Nutshell. Building height: 59.8 meters; building diameter: 100 meters; number of seats: 2,000 (movable); LED screens: 3 (each covering 75 square meters and weighing 8 metric tons); water stage: 1,200 square meters, 8.5 meters deep, water temperature: 30°C
New Stage for Siemens in China
This feat is accomplished by the SIMOTION D435 motion controller and the SINAMICS S120 drive system, which are widely used in industry. Although these systems are also found in stage technology in Europe and the U.S., they are new on stages in China.
However, Siemens was competent enough and honored to take the breathtaking challenge at theHan Show, where the robots and the screens are unprecedentedly huge. “Although we never doubted that such a performance is theoretically possible, we were somewhat concerned whether it would work in practice,” admits Hu. “Siemens has really taken a big load off our minds.” Hu was particularly impressed by the work done by the company’s technicians. To complete the robots’ assembly, the technicians had to climb up a 50-meter-high metal scaffold, which they did with “moist hands and feet,” as Siemens engineer Jiaxing Xi admits.
It gave Xi and his colleagues a feeling for how much the performers’ lives depend on the care with which the technicians do their work. Among other things, the installation controls and operates a trapeze act involving dozens of acrobats who perform heart-stopping flying stunts with 60 single point cantilevers and 12 rail cars that are suspended above the audience from the ceiling.
Movable Seats
The audience also moves around during the show. The spectators first face the stage. Later in the show, the galleries split and arrange themselves in blocks around the pool, which was up to then hidden beneath the galleries. The rows of seats rotate and move horizontally and vertically during the show. The seats are also directed by SIMOTION D435 motion controllers and driven by hydraulic cylinders with a range of six meters. This could also be a new record, because the theater has the biggest sections of movable seating ever made for a building interior.
Although the other Siemens technology contained in the theater is less spectacular, it is just as important. Several components are contained in the building's low-voltage supply system, while programmable logic controls ensure the safety of performers and the audience. Siemens also supplied the building control system, as well as the building's PROFINET data transmission infrastructure.
The Han Show has been Siemens’ baptism of fire for stage production equipment in China. Renrong Hu suggests that the cooperation between Wanda and Siemens in Wuhan won’t be the last of its kind. “We are planning to build additional world-class theaters elsewhere in China,” he says. “And we are looking forward to continuing our collaboration with Siemens.”