VIDEO: Google Cultural Institute Introduces 360-Degree Performing Arts Videos

Up until now, the Internet's free Google Cultural Institute has been known exclusively for digitizing and displaying items from more than 800 art museums and historical archives from around the work.

Today the institute introduces a new collection of performing arts videos from the worlds of music, opera, theatre, dance and performance art. The videos feature world-class artists in historic venues performing classic works with viewers able to control the angles from which they're viewing.

Current highlights include The Philadelphia Orchestra performing "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Grieg's PEER GYNT at Carnegie Hall, a scene from Wagner's LOHENGRIN performed at Sao Paulo's Theatro Municipal, actor Alex Hassell of the Royal Shakespeare Company rallying his troops in HENRY V and members of the Paris Opera Ballet dancing Benjamin Millepied's CLEAR, LOUD, BRIGHT, FORWARD.

In a New York Times article, the institute's director, Amit Sood, explains how the venture will increase more interest in live performance than simply posting performance videos on the Internet.

"That's important, for sure," says Sood, "but the idea here is to provide narrative, to provide behind the scenes, to provide context."

Sood credits the idea to Clive Gillinson, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, who asked him why Google could not do for performing arts institutions what it was already doing for the visual arts.

The initial appeal for viewers, he adds, is that the powerful zoom feature allows viewers to explore the venues, from on stage and off, with incredible detail.

Participating groups also include American Ballet Theater, the American Museum of Magic, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera, the Rome Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic. Some exhibitions are much more detailed, and technologically advanced, than others.

Click here for the full article.

Visit performingarts.withgoogle.com