Valentines or not, love takes flight & romance at the Waterfront on Sentosa Island. I think what I saw yesterday night was somewhat different because there was a power trip. But I have been curious over the past 24 hours about the details of its design. Fell sick with a bad strep throat, I took my mouse for a snoop around the internet. Power shut down had cut short of the love birds' story. Now I know it was supposed to be a ~ magical~ love story between a pair of mechanical cranes and how their splendid love for each other turned them into real birds and flew off gracefully happily ever after.
In any avian's case, I've found the entire show very creative: from the story plot to the beautiful choreography of the cranes' movements to how the cranes were set into the waterfront area. All these had produced a simply delightful performance. The weight of these birds were hidden not only by the dark night skies as a backdrop, but also its visual and audio technologies appeared to lighten these heavily mechanical birds felt & looked far less robotic & clumsy than it actually was. The water effects, especially those spraying out of the birds as wings made them appear to propel with elegance and speed. The accelerated feelings of this avian couple were illustrated in brightness and movement as they progressed in their courtship. The entire multimedia drama had its dramatic impact that spread across the entire waterfront area, making its sheer presence felt. I couldn't see what were the actual materials of these lovey doveys but it did somewhat offered a sense of commedy because of its comical physical form. It looked almost cartoon-like. its initial brash mechanical sense finally transformed both into to full blown natural, blood and flesh warmth real cranes.Stunning.
I especially enjoyed the beautiful play of water & multimedia presentation on its 'chest-panels'. I like such innovative ideas that brings up imagination when it comes to the arts. The whole Crane Dance structure weighs 500 tonnes: each crane weighs 80 tonnes. The whole plan could have been excellent if it were not for the power failure. I wonder if the heavy downpour in the past weeks had an impact but I think there may have been other reasons for the breakdown.
Other technical details: (extract from Resorts World Sentosa)
*designer:
Jeremy Railton
*control systems to prevent collision – similar to those used by Japanese bullet trains.
*The cranes are powered entirely on four giant hydraulic power units, totally 5,000 horsepower – each HPU is good enough to fly a small aircraft.
*36,720 litres of sea water is used in each show to form wings' – the same volume of fresh water can sustain ahe WaterFront.
Where could you see this:
Singapore's Sentosa Island.
Starts at 9pm daily.
Duration: 10 minutes
Location: WaterFront
Fee: Free Admission
Doesn't take up much time, but it sure packs one up to think about its entire wonder & how the whole design works. VERY interesting!- Karen Fu
Reference:
1.
Tiny Island
2.
Resorts World Sentosa
3. Further Technical & Concept details
Live design Online 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works
3.0 Singapore License.
