Avatars, play and performance

Tag: avatarvaro

Grattis Turteatern 50 år!

Turteatern firar 50! Eftersom vi gjort tre verk där har vi skrivit lite till deras jubileumsantologi. Läs intervjun här!

Vi har även gjort ett litet ljudkollage med exempel ur de tre föreställningarna som går att höra här:

Om publiken i handling på Teaterrummet

Ebba Petrén och Gabriel Widing har skrivit en ny text om publikmedverkan:

För den som önskar bjuda in publiken i scenrummet uppstår nya möjligheter och problem. Vilka strategier ska användas för att göra vana och ovana teaterbesökare trygga att ta steget in i en gemensam iscensättning. Skådespelare tränar i flera år för att känna sig bekväma i teaterrummet, men publiken har inte fått den hjälpen och kommer utan förberedelser. De söker stimulans men är ofta obekväma med att sätta sin egen tillvaro på spel. Teaterrummet har aldrig varit en plats där publik och skådespelare kan mötas på lika villkor.

Läs vidare här: “Publik i handling” publicerad på Göteborgs stadsteaters forum Teaterrummet.

Avatar vs Human – a short avatar scenario to play at home or elsewhere

avatar-vs-human

We are happy to share this short scenario with you. It was written by Ebba Petrén and Gabriel Widing at PAF last summer. You can play it with two people or in front of a smaller audience. The participants should not listen to the track on beforehand.

You need

• 2 voluntary participants.
• A pair of headphones with the Mp3-file.
• A table
• 2 chairs
• 2 windows that can be opened, it’s nice but not necessary if there is a view.

Take it off

To begin, one of the two players starts the mp3-track and put the headphones on. The other player start by observing the avatar. Both players starts standing up. When you put on the headphones you are the avatar, follow the instructions and take no other initiatives. When you don’t wear headphones you try to communicate with the avatar by responding to it as if you are having a chat with that person for the first time.

Description

The avatar asks something demanding, something the human finds hard and personal to answer. The avatar says “You will have the opporutnity to be an avatar. And I will become human. When I raise my hand you can take my headphones and become the avatar”. It raises the hand. The new avatar comes out, “the avatar of a human spirit”, and opens a window saluting the fresh air. Next avatar is “the avatar of the real” trying to jump out of the window. Human has to stop it. More avatars follow, with other agendas.

Some feedback

“It’s like having a child or a pet in your room when you’re trying to work. You have to take notice and care for it. And it will for sure use its voice to communicate!”

Background

We’ve presented this scenario at PAF Performing arts forum in St Erme,  2012, at the 14th Symposium of the International Brecht Society in Porto Alegre, 2013 and at Scenkonstbiennalen in Jönköping,  2013. We are looking forward to hear where it will  be played next and how you experience it!

Documentation

Video from a session at a room in Master Express Grande Hotel, Porto Alegre, May 2013. On screen: Ester Claesson and John Hanse. Spoiler warning!

Avatarworkshop på Scenkonstbiennalen

Teaterbiennalen har blivit Scenkonstbiennalen, vilket vi uppskattar eftersom det ger större rum för experimentella  performativa praktiker och förhoppningsvis spännande möten mellan teater och dans. Vi gör en workshop på lördagen den 25:e maj.

Avatarvaro

Experiment med ett nytt scenkonstformat där publiken står i centrum

Med hjälp av ljudinstruktioner går deltagarna in i olika situationer. Som avatarer utför de koreografier, dramatiska dialoger och rör sig enskilt i hypnosliknande tillstånd. De talar, tänker, känner och rör sig – allt efter instruktion.

Under workshopen får du uppleva formatet och lära dig mer om möjligheterna med avatarvaro. Som avatar blir du både betraktare och aktör och förhandlar ständigt med vad som är verkligt och vad som är fiktion, varifrån initiativet till handling kommer.

Vi kommer använda oss av material från tidigare föreställningar och pågående arbete.

Max 12 deltagare per tillfälle.

Workshopledare: Ebba Petrén, regissör, Kerstin Weimers, ljusdesigner, Albin Werle, konstnär, Gabriel Widing, spelutvecklare

Avatarvaro (The Avatar Condition) – Brief

An UngaTur performance piece in collaboration with Interacting Arts

There is no audience.
There are no actors.
The Avatar Condition is something else.
Discover who you become when someone else makes your decisions.

The Avatar Condition is an invitation to being controlled. To act without having to make decisions. Through headphones, you are instructed to move, speak and act – collectively and individually. You don’t need any prior knowledge to participate. A voice will guide you through the piece, which takes place as much in your own head as it does in the space.

The Avatar Condition has been developed in Stockholm, Malmö, Västerås and Copenhagen during the last year. The Avatar Condition was played in Stockholm theatre Turteatern December 8-11 of 2011, and in Malmö at Inkonst in May 2012.

Where will it go next? Maybe to a black box, dance studio, abandoned industrial building or inhabited villa close to you…

Take a decision to give up your freedom of choice! Bring us over and try out The Avatar Condition.

By: Albin Werle, Ebba Petrén, Elize Arvefjord, Gabriel Widing, Kerstin Weimers, Klara Backman, Moa Backman and Tova Gerge.

  • Duration: 90 min
  • Capacity: 18 guests/show
  • Contact and tech rider: ebba.petren@gmail.com

2 filmklipp från Avatarvaro

Petter Karlsson gjorde ett litet Youtube-reportage från genrepet av föreställningen som ni kan se här. Gabriel och Ebba försöker kommunicera något om vad det handlar om.

Även Crowdculture, som vi fick stöd från, har gjort en liten filmpresentation där jag pratar lite om projektet. De flesta av klippen är från speltest då scenografin inte var klar tyvärr.

Play test documentation

(Video interviews in Swedish)

The avatar figure derives from hindu gods taking human or animal shape to run errands on earth. In the digital communities of the 90:s the concept was reversed – the participants were represented by digital characters on screen, putting people in the former positions of the gods. This project is about the avatar condition, being possessed by an outer force, voice or possibly a system. The avatar is already inherent in the hierarchical mind-body distinction. The mind is already an alien presence in the body, telling it what to do. The Avatar Condition aims to externalise that process of loosing and taking control of the body-turning-machine.

The Avatar Condition is so far an artistic research project and it has not found a proper, presentable and public form yet. What we do at this point is to try out different modes, atmospheres, instructions and stories. There is no passive-spectating audience in this process. Everyone becomes involved in an unfolding story on control, desire and choice.

The Avatar Condition is a proposal developed by Ebba Petrén based in Malmö, who recently organized a festival on participation and theatre and Gabriel Widing, game desiger, based in Stockholm. Together we have produced black-box role-playing scenarios in different contexts and our interest remains in the potentials of combining games, play, theatre and performance practices. Avatar workshops and game tests has previously been organized in Stockholm, Västerås, Malmö and Copenhagen.

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