A jacket is enhancing live music and performance experiences through real-time touch sensations. It's called the SoundShirt, and Omaha Performing Arts is one of the first performance venues in the world to introduce it. It's a lightweight, zip-up jacket with sound actuators built in, and its goal is to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing have a fuller experience of a live performance through coordinated vibrations. "A lot of times they're looking and watching ASL, somebody who's doing American Sign Language, or they're reading a captions," Andy Cassano, vice president of programming and education for Omaha Performing Arts, said. "Well, now they're not just looking at the person who is signing. They can feel the intensity of what's happening and where it's happening on the entire stage. If you just took those four channel, you just took those four channels, you could put the cellos here and the violas here, one section of violin here, and one section of violins here, and they would vibrate according to who was playing."While researching new technology for arts accessibility, Cassano said he stumbled across technology similar to the SoundShirt and started to dig further, eventually discovering CuteCircuit, the company who created the SoundShirt. "The more and more I investigated about this technology, I kept thinking to myself, why can't we do this in Omaha?," Cassano said. "After, again, a lot of research and a lot of conversations with this company, which is based in London and bringing in our technical people and also involving members of the deaf and hard of hearing community, all throughout, Omaha, people who we work with for ASL interpretation that Broadway shows to the Nebraska Commission on the Deaf and hard of hearing, to a number of just individuals, about how to provide the best experience and how we can utilize this. We brought the technology here. We started to pilot it on a number of programs, both now and going to be continuing that through next year as well."Over the course of the next year, O-pa will be piloting the SoundShirt during different events. "Whether they're with the symphony or on Broadway or rock and roll or the opera, you name it, this technology will be available for every single one of those performances," Cassano said. "It's such a little thing to add, but it's completely transformative."Eventually, the SoundShirt will be added to O-pa's list of free accessibility tools."It really is as simple as, just letting us know that you need the program, you need the, the equipment. And at that simple request, we can make sure that it's available," Cassano said. "People who are deaf and hard of hearing know that they are welcome, that we want them to be here, and that hopefully this makes it a lot easier and a lot more memorable."Omaha Performing Arts will officially unveil the SoundShirt to the public Thursday during their Voices AMPLIFIED! event at 6:30. The event at the Holland Center is called Interwoven: Where Fashion & Technology Connect. It will feature a fashion show of adaptive designs by and for people with disabilities, followed by a silent disco where the SoundShirt will be demonstrated. The event is open to the public and is a "Choose-What-You-Pay," which does offer a $0 option, so cost isn't a barrier. Registration is available now, click here. NAVIGATE: Home | Weather | Local News | National | Sports | Newscasts on demand |