Yoga studio brings Tibet to you.
Urban Yoga’s motto is ‘Sounds Better, Looks Better, Feels Better’ and the team takes it very seriously — it’s a modern, funkily-designed studio as fastidious about detail as its hip, urban clientele.
It all starts with the music: LA-based DJ Jackmoore works with Urban Yoga on the perfect playlist. It’s not all wind chimes and throat singing, Urban Yoga can be high energy at times and a gutsy PA (based on QSC K8 loudspeakers, Allen&Heath GR5 rackmount mixer and Audio-Technica System10 digital wireless microphone system) ensures the yogis feel the vibe.
Once a session’s music is finalised its shared with Sydney-based filmmaker, Patrick De Teliga, who matches the music with sympathetic video content. It might be footage shot by himself or content he’s curated. Mostly it’s beautiful slow moving landscapes.
One side of the studio is dominated by a projection screen that carries the visuals. Studio Manager, Jodi Cantafio, calls it ‘immersive’ and you can see why: “The thought was that if we were going to introduce a visual component it had to be of the highest quality and not tokenistic.” At 7.1m wide and 2.4m high the system is utterly enveloping.
A Dataton WatchPax2 media player runs the show, taking the 2334 x 800-pixel footage, managing the edge-blending of the two Panasonic PT-RW630 6000-lumen LED projectors, the scaling of the overall image, and the sync’ing and triggering of the music and content. Dataton Watchnet software takes care of control via a wall-mounted touchscreen, where instructors can easily cue-up sessions.
The projectors use ultra-short-throw (0.3:1) lenses to bring them nice and close (1.2m) to the screens, ensuring there’s no shadowing from instructors getting in between the projector and the screen. The system was supplied, integrated and installed by Interactive Controls.
And what about the doubters who thought the visuals would be a distraction? “The overwhelming feedback is it takes people the out of their heads and helps them to be fully present.”
Urban Yoga: urban-yoga.com.au
Interactive Controls: (02) 9436 3022 or interactivecontrols.com.au
Panasonic: (02) 9491 7400 or panasonic.com.au
TAG (QSC, Allen&Heath, Audio-Technica): (02) 9519 0900 or tag.com.au