Here are some sketches for out characters in Drömdykarna.
Deltagare. Skiss av Albin Werle
Dr. Eva Dockhaus. Skiss av Ebba Petrén
Milo. Skiss av Albin Werle
Eli. Skiss av Albin Werle
Author: admin
Har du känt att drömmar kan vara lika verkliga som den vanliga världen? Det är inte så konstigt – det är nämligen sant! Fråga bara forskaren Eva Dockhaus, vars nya fantastiska uppfinning gör det möjligt att gå in i en sovande människas drömmar. Det är spännande och annorlunda, men inte alls farligt.
Unga Dramaten/Elverket har byggts om till ett drömforskningscentrum. Där kan du träffa doktor Dockhaus och själv dyka in i testpersonen Milos drömvärldar. Men vem är det som dyker upp i Milos drömmar gång på gång? Följ med på en resa fylld med roliga uppdrag och möten.
Drömdykarna handlar om drömmar, nyfikenhet och vänskap. Besökarna rör sig mellan olika rum, bjuds in att delta i spel och får individuella instruktioner via hörlurar under stora delar av föreställningen. Drömdykarna riktar sig till deltagare i åldrarna 10 till 12 år.
NYXXX: TOVA GERGE, EBBA PETRÉN*, ALBIN WERLE, GABRIEL WIDING, KERSTIN WEIMERS**
Med David Book, Eva Melander, Eric Stern och publiken
Text, regi, scenografi, ljus, ljud, kostym och speldesign NYXXX
Peruk och mask Veronica Liljeblad
Urpremiär 15 mars Unga Dramaten / Elverket
*Gör projektet inom ramen för masterprogrammet vid Teaterhögskolan i Malmö.
** Examensstudent från StDh
We’ve just started to work with our new project for kids 10-12 and beyond. It will be staged at Elverket / Unga Dramaten. Most of what we are doing is completely new.
What we bring from the last big piece Avatarvaro is basically that the audience will get instructions and sensory stimulation from headphones. This time we are using radio transmissions that is targeted to each audience member individually.
Below is the antenna that separates and transmits the signals.
Starting the process involves plenty of practicalities, here bringing pedestals to the studio from the dark and hidden storage rooms of the royal theatre.
Here is where we’ll run the show, premiere March 15:
This site will host the performance art crew NYXXX. We produce art where the audience goes centre-stage and experience the work from within. We formed as a group in the backwash of Avatarvaro, which was played at Turteatern (Stockholm) and Inkonst (Malmö). Right now we are working on a new piece for Elverket / Unga Dramaten, which goes under the title Drömdykarna (Oneironauts).
We are also thinking about some kind of visual profile, but that will probably come later…
Summer is slowly fading away and I haven’t written here since May, which is a shame because plenty of interesting things has been going on.
This week me and Ebba Petrén has had the fantastic opportunity to go to Performing Arts Forum. We have a generous grant from The Swedish Arts Grant Committee to be able to do research on the avatar formats. The last week we’ve been thinking about what we have done so far and explored new ideas on what is possible to do within the avatar frame – humans being directed by a voice, turning them into something else, hybrids between man and machine.
First of all I want to say that this place is amazing. I was here last year to attend the Agora Seminars and I have had the intention to come back ever since. Just have a look of the village S:t Erme as it emerge from my bedroom window tonight:
Here are a couple of the ideas that we’ve been working with, I’ll probably get back with more later …
Switching positions
The idea is to explore what happens when you change into an avatar and the intention to do so. In the most simple iteration one person (human) has a conversation with anouther one who wear headphones and reciev instructions (avatar). When the avatar stretch its hand up (following an instruction, of course) the human can chose to take its position. The avatar can never chose to be a human, but the human can chose to turn herself into an avatar.
We did a recording where the avatar is asking questions and then making interruptions. Encouraging the human to talk, but not really responding in a proper way.
We also tried out a “Round Robin” structure with 4 avatar tracks and a group of audience members, who could chose to take the headphones during certain circumstances. The curiosity on behalf of the audience was high and everyone wanted to become avatars at some point.
We have a lot more ideas on how avatar-human interaction could work out that we didn’t have the possibility to try out in practise yet. It could be an avatar hosting seance, initiating a game or introducing conversational topics in a social situation.
Here is the studio we’ve been working in with the simple set up for the 4-avatar switching test.
Phone call piece
Here is a new idea of a piece where the audience give their phone numbers to us when they enter the performance. We have a dramaturgy, a railroaded set of actions that the audience members execute/perform by getting phone call instructions, wishes, begs from the operators, a kind of call center. This would not really be avatarisation, there would freedom to say no to negotiate or say no to an instruction. The operators/game masters are seated in a call center, a room near by, above them or in the same room but behind a window.
“Excuse me, could you help us by…”
“There is a camera, can you make the documentation of this piece?”
“Can you take responsibility for …”
This way we could produce an aesthetizised social dynamic in the room.
Over and out / Gabriel Widing
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
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.
(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.