This is incredibly impressive purely for the technical challenge of turning EL Wire on and off with millisecond timing, on remote, mobile devices.
The best I could do musing about it would be to use something like Light-O-Rama to control the timing, while using the on/off output from LoR to (insert handwave here) to send signals over a local wi-fi network, and put Arduino controllers with WiFi daughterboards on each person to receive the signals across the ad hoc network they're connected to.
Reshared post from +Rafael Soriano
This was amazingly well done. Props to them.
That is so cool
They were on America's Got Talent??? I've been stalking these dudes on youtube for like two years now!
That was probably the most visually impressive thing I've seen in a while. Specially performed on stage to a live audience. Amazing wire work, lighting timing, and dance stamina.
wire work like EL wire, or like stagecraft wires?
…cuz it was dudes wearing black lifting them up from the floor… =)
The guys lifting them up in basically complete darkness. That's really hard to keep track of that many people in darkness.
The easiest way to do this would be to actually have all the individual dancers turn the lights on their suits on or off. They know the moves, so they know when to turn it on or off… and you can see that they mess up twice in this vid.
+Rumble In The Jungle actually it would be easiest if all the dancers had to do was remember their moves and spots and they had an extra 'tech' guy whom controlled all the lights going on or off.
The absolute easiest (for someone techie) would be to automate the whole thing with an on-body controller (arduino, perhaps?) that was connected to a master controller via wifi. There are TONS of EL wire projects out there that do exactly that.