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Live and Life in Virtual Theatre: Adapting traditional theatre processes to engage creatives in digital immersive technologies
Get PDFThe Round is an augmented reality platform that allows users at home to watch live streamed 3D characters being produced by real actors in a motion capture suite. The project holds the idea of “liveness” in high regard and considers it an important part of the theatrical experience that needed to be preserved in the creation of an at-home, digital experience. The live theatre experience in itself is often enormously technical with pre-recorded visual and audio experiences that are designed to be repeated. We ask the question, what is live theatre and how does this map to live streamed digital experiences, particularly involving motion capture? Whilst liveness, in this context, refers to the experience of the audience and their relationship with the performer, there is another aspect of live that affects the process of creating and designing a piece of digital theatre. The ability to affect and determine results from “live” changes to ideas on stage from the theatrical design team became an important part of the iteration of the production itself. This is part of the traditional theatre making process which doesn’t easily map into the limitations of digital immersive content creation. This project however attempted to rectify that by introducing innovative technologies that allowed existing theatrical control systems and the skills used to run them to operate Unreal Engine 4 game engine, live for the show. By retaining traditional theatrical equipment and skills, the entire production team who were all new to delivering theatre in a virtual medium, were able to adapt their existing practices and approach to communication in order to maintain fast design iteration and effective collaboration within an entirely new digital medium. This paper looks at the creation of the first prototype of The Round and the effect of using traditional theatrical technologies and processes in combination with real-time platforms that are trying to adapt to the live theatre model. Whilst trying to understand the role of the live design process in this context, the subject of “liveness” will be discussed from an audience point of view and the necessity of “live” with or without “life” in the medium the audience is watching
Networked Audience Participation: The Futurity of Post-Brexit Democracy in One Day, Maybe and Operation Black Antler
Get PDFWhere are we in the story of British democracy? Was the 2016 EU Referendum a rehearsal for a new political system of direct democracy that ultimately benefits the far right? Or will the Internet replace the conventional machinery of government with a radical new form of network power where people discursively experiment with new political realities through aesthetic modes of social relations? This article proffers the term ‘networked participation’ to describe a conceptual model of citizenry centred on structuring meaning through the dialogic exchange of information in aesthetic environments. The political ideals of network politics inform my analysis of the complex web of connections that participants scaffold in the performances Operation Black Antler (Blast Theory and Hydrocracker 2017) and One Day, Maybe (dreamthinkspeak 2017) between identitarian ideology in Britain and competing narratives of democracy’s meaning in South Korea, respectively. This model of audience participation is proffered to develop a theory of social relations produced through a theatrical experience of digital interconnectivity
The Virtual Opera House: hybrid realities in lighting design processes for large scale opera
Get PDFDigital visualisation tools – virtual models – are increasingly used as part of the creative and production processes of large-scale theatre and opera. These technologies not only enable the modelling of the performance space with its scenic and lighting scenographies, but also facilitate the modelling of production processes and human relationships. Focusing on lighting at the Royal Opera House, London, I examine the role of digital visualisation in the production process of large-scale opera. Digital models allow designers and production teams to manipulate not only virtual space, but also virtual time, and I show how the ‘Virtual Opera House’ allows multiple possible futures to be modelled, reviewed and selected. Further, the limited time available on the opera stage for lighting and technical rehearsals can be supplemented with additional, virtual stage rehearsals inserted between the physical ones: interstitial time. Effective working relationships between members of the lighting team are critical to the successful realisation of design intentions – relationships that take considerable labour to develop and maintain. The Virtual Opera House creates a space and time where professional relationships can be modelled; away from the pressures of stage rehearsals, the lighting designer, lighting programmer and others spend time to develop and nurture the working relationships they rely on later. Using primary evidence from practitioners, I demonstrate how the Virtual Opera House is not only a virtual model of the stage and physical production, but is also an environment where processes and relationships can be modelled and remodelled: a hybrid-reality collaborative environment
Cuddington: a photo-scenographic investigation of the public park
No full textCuddington park was formed during London’s inter-war suburban expansion. Built commercially but promoted utopian ideals, these suburbs offered a new middle class of commuters the opportunity to live in a ‘natural’ environment of tree-lined roads, private gardens and public parks. Built on farmland, Cuddington park is both a relic of the previous working agricultural landscape and a newly constructed and regulated space for leisure activities.
Cuddington investigates the park’s multiple natures through photography, firstly as a constructed, idealised landscape in the fashion of the 18th Century landscape architects and painters. The park is both an aristocratic landscape, now democratised, and a working landscape, now made bourgeois. It is also a place of habitation, where residents enact their leisure activities, while the park’s boundary of fences, shrubs and trees ensures a carefully calibrated level of visibility, with houses overlooking the neatly constructed public park, and park-goers able to glimpse the more-or-less orderly private domestic zone in return.
My approach draws on representations of landscape in the visual arts, but also considers it scenographically, as a place of habitation – of action performed, and by implication, observed1. My project is therefore also a methodological enquiry, bringing together elements of the established disciplines of art history, social history, documentary and fine art photography with the rapidly developing discipline of scenography
Kicking Up Our Heels, created by Brian Lobel and Emily Underwood-Lee
No full textArtists Emily Underwood-Lee, Brian Lobel and Emily Speed worked with parents at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and GOSH Arts to consider the importance of finding space for yourself when you’re a parent or a carer of a child in hospital. Brian and Emily Underwood-Lee staged performances at the bedside for parents across the wards and asking where they go, and what they do to look after themselves when they are at GOSH. Emily Speed used the information gathered from parents to make a collection of artworks which aim to support parents to care better for themselves when they are in the hospital.
Outcomes:
Performances with 100 parents, carers and children at GOSH.
A permanent artwork/s situated in the wards at GOSH.
A resource that will be available for all parents at the hospital.
A publication exploring the research findings.
A project report.
Impact:
The project engaged with families and staff at GOSH, comprising of a diverse group who cross cultures, abilities, genders and ages.
The performative participatory sessions engaged specifically with parents and carers - through participating in sessions and experiencing the artwork they were informally empowered to think about self-care and speak with each other about it.
GOSH has an average yearly footfall of over 300,000 which includes children, their families, support staff, medical staff, administrators, and others who will have an opportunity to engage with the public artwork. We hope the conversations generated by the project will inform decisions made in the hospital over the coming years including around the redevelopment of the GOSH island site and through research projects and delivery agendas which will improve the lives of GOSH families
On the Edge of Training: how can we support and train artists working in the theatre for young audiences sector?
Get PDFOn The Edge of Training was a research project initiated by the Rose Bruford College TYA Centre and led by Lead Researcher Jeremy Harrison, in collaboration with Half Moon Theatre, London and Artrix Arts Centre, Bromsgrove. The project was part of the research and symposia strand of the ASSITEJ On The Edge International Artistic Gathering, held in Birmingham in 2016. The research was designed to explore and identify how artists are prepared, supported and trained for work directed at children and young people, with the aim of provoking discussion, identifying and defining best practice internationally and deepening understanding of how to support and train artists and students wishing to engage in the creation and performance of theatre made for children and young people. The term theatre in this context was used in its broadest sense, encompassing performance practices that included dance, visual mediums, puppetry, music, live art and text-based approaches. This document is a report summarising the outcomes
Theatre Development Programme (2015-2019) Project Report (including Practice Research Reflections)
Get PDFFunded by British Council Uzbekistan and Rose Bruford College.
This report has been commissioned by British Council Uzbekistan and prepared by Niamh Dowling, Head of the School of Performance at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (RBC).
Over the course of the Theatre Development Programme practitioners from RBC submitted individual reports with recommendations following visits to the Uzbekistan Institute of Arts and Culture (USIAC) (Appendix II). The individual recommendations, aligned with the original objectives (section 3 below) and the conclusions (section 5), are summarised in four key recommendations:
1) An online programme for skills and teacher training
2) Technical training for production
3) Supporting the establishment of an independent theatre sector in Uzbekistan
4) Establishing formal arts management and cultural policy training in Uzbekistan
The report also critically includes (in the Appendix) Niamh's Introduction to a Deeper Understanding of the Body for Movement Teachers with an Underpinning in the Principles of Alexander Technique and Systemic Constellations
Niamh Dowling: Embedding Systemic Constellation Work Within Contemporary Movement Practice
No full textNiamh Dowling's practice research explores how Systemic Constellations can inform Contemporary Movement Practice. Niamh's work is established internationally as a movement practice with its underpinning in the principles of the Alexander Technique. Her training in Systemic Constellations over the past eight years has deeply informed her practice and offers a much needed perspective on the inclusive direction of travel that is essential for actor training and specifically contemporary movement training.
The video captures this research from two perspectives. Firstly: Niamh narrates how Systemic Constellations is becoming embedded within Niamh's current movement practice. Secondly: Niamh demonstrates the value to the student actor in understanding the need for their whole self to be included in their training whether cultural/historical/social/ability/sexuality or background
BINGE Performance Installation
No full textThis series of performances (2019-2020) brings together Brian Lobel's research in one-to-one performance making and notions of intimacy, using the simple act of communal television watching. Based on Brian's 2015-2018 performance, You Have to Forgive Me, You Have to Forgive Me, You Have to Forgive Me (Sydney Opera House, 2016, amongst other locales), BINGE saw over 500 one-to-one and small group performances. Audience members began by completing a Self Evaluation Document (available at the bottom of the webpage) and paired with an artist with in-depth, fanatical knowledge of a tv programme (Spaced, The Office, Bad Girls, Sex and the City) for an intimate, 30-45 minute performance involving a discussion, ritual for opening/closing the space, and a shared watching of an episode of tv.
This practice research explores how one-to-one practice is produced, curated and performed, with each of the 20+ artists using the same basic score but interpreting it in various different ways. BINGE considers how one-to-ones are scheduled (BINGE in Manchester and Birmingham worked on a rolling basis, where BINGE (digital) at La Jolla Playhouse was individually ticketed), as well as how one-to-one practices are produced in a post-Me-Too moment (as all audience members, despite having one-to-one, could see all other one-to-one performances happening simultaneously) and considerations of safety for both audience member and artist
Body Brain Bingo
Get PDFA PRACTICE AS RESEARCH PROJECT INVESTIGATING
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS BETWEEEN
ACADEMICS, ARTISTS AND ACTIVISTS TOWARDS PROJECTS
ADDRESSING MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEIN