As Denmark’s new national centre for contemporary dance and choreography, the scope of flexibility required by the Copenhagen Dansehallerne’s performance spaces reflects the needs of its designers, choreographers and performers.
Matching the freedom of the spaces, there are no permanent loudspeaker placements.
The dansehallerne (dance halls) themselves are fully adjustable spaces, from their audience seating to the performance spaces. The building is served by an Ethernet network using Dante and AVB/Milan network protocols, serving a Meyer Sound Galaxy processor paired with Meyer Sound Ultra X20 and X40 point source loudspeakers. After the original sound system was found too inflexible for its requirements, integrator Stouenborg was called in to revisit the installation.
Mikkelsen Architects had led the initial transformation of the Kedelhuset (boiler house), which was designed by architect Carl Harild and built between 1925-1928, and considered one of the strongest examples of functional industrial architecture of its time. Constructed for the production of hot water for beer brewing and for energy generation, the building comprised a large boiler hall on the first floor and a ground floor where water and slag from the coal-fired plants were tapped.
Following completion of the work, the ground floor is laid out with dance studios, changing rooms, workshops etc. around a centrally located foyer and bar. The new first floor layout includes a black box stage, back stage area and foyer, their industrial design referencing the industrial boilers that previously occupied the space.
The repurposed building opened in 2024 after seven years’ renovation and modernisation, during which time the Copenhagen Dansehallerne had relocated to temporary premises. Head of Sound & Video Johannes Hornberger has worked at the venue since 2012, and is responsible for all sound and video requirements of the halls, as well as all media requirements, and oversaw the move from the old premises to the new halls.
‘We needed a completely flexible system, which is unusual for a performance space, especially for small or black-box spaces,’ he says. ‘We had already planned that the whole house would be covered with an Ethernet network, with connections wherever we needed them. However, the loudspeaker system was analogue, so we would need to convert the signal and run analogue cables to them.’
The link missing from the venue’s sound provision turned out to be DirectOut’s Prodigy.MP and Prodigy.MC modular audio converters. Stouenborg Project Manager Anders Jørgensen and the team settled on two Prodigy.MP and six Prodigy.MC frames with AN8.IO converter modules, and Dante.IO and Milan.IO network modules. This combination ensured the infrastructure would be flexible and stable enough to support any imagined performance requirements.
With the constantly-changing repertoire of the Dansehallerne, engineers be running hundreds of meters of cables a week.
‘We have 300 network lines throughout the building,’ Jørgensen says. ‘We knew we would be using Dante and AVB/Milan, so we needed a bridge, and we had no doubt that the only solution was DirectOut. The infrastructure that DirectOut provides, with the ability to swap cards and easily route whatever we want to wherever we want, is completely aligned with our immersive whole-venue mindset. Whatever you dream of as a sound designer is possible in this building.’
Stouenborg’s implementation of this infrastructure covers the venue, offering the connectivity of a single performance space and allowing engineers to access any point at any time to facilitate choreography requirements.
‘Dancers and choreographers love to experiment,’ Hornberger says. ‘Our system is AVB/Milan, so we knew we need to convert from our console and wireless microphones plus IEMs to our loudspeakers. DirectOut can handle all of this, not just the network conversions, but also analogue to digital. We can use the whole house as a single space and move freely throughout the building in a performance setting.’
Being able to pick up video and audio feeds anywhere in the building is useful not just for play back for performers and audiences, but can also be used to facilitate online and broadcast streams, delivering content to a wider audience.
‘Overall, we have eight Prodigy systems, two Prodigy.MP are permanently installed into a central control room, then we have six further Prodigy.MC to ensure flexibility; whether the performance is in a studio or the foyer, we are all set. In the old days, we would need to run a lot of cable, through doors and windows to get to some places, now we just have one box.’
Buiding flexibility into a system can come at the cost of a complicated user interface but DirectOut’s globcon has allowed Hornberger to personalise access to the network. ‘The system is amazing, but also complex if you are not familiar with it,’ he says. ‘We have developed set-ups and workflows so that, when I am absent, freelancers can access the audio system and work within programmed parameters. Now, all they have to do is move the loudspeakers and plug them in. I have put our DirectOut Breakout box into a small, labelled flightcase so everyone can understand and plug in simply. It’s very easy to move that small box wherever it’s needed and plug straight into the system.’
It is a system that is rewarding Hornberger with successful results. The audio team are able to react positively to any request with an efficient and elegant solution that offers precisely what the dance piece needs, without demanding hours of effort from the technical team.
‘We couldn’t be happier with the system,’ he says. ‘Making changes to a plan is always concerning – budgets are already set and systems are in place – but thanks to the hard work of our suppliers and installers, we have been able to create a system that works exactly as we hoped. The major challenge was to make a complex system suitable for all our performances – simple for small set-ups but retaining the possibility to facilitate the big complex shows, too. It has achieved exactly that.’
‘This is a building that lends itself to festivals and large-scale events,’ Jørgensen continues. ‘As soon as the audience walks through the doors, they are in the middle of the production, and the show doesn’t stop until they leave. To facilitate an idea as grand as that, we need a solution with flexibility and scalability. This is completely possible in the Danserhallerne – and that is thanks to the complexity of our system and the ability of DirectOut to accommodate that flexibility.’