is the knowledge-sharing platform for the 

. Explore the experiments and bold ideas behind the Academy's Fellowship programme, delve into the science behind the projects of our HIDA researchers, and explore the results of international collaborations.

is a platform for discovery and documentation. Each 

showcases a unique artistic-technological research project, with topics as diverse as the use of AI in theatrical design, choreography for and with robotics, and the possibilities for theatre in virtual spaces. Each 

 offers the chance to learn more about the members of our artistic research network. By pooling our knowledge in such a way, creative research into theatre, performance and digital technologies can become more accessible, sustainable, and artistically innovative.

Funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Academy will award a total of 54 fellowships between 2019 and 2022, each lasting for five months. The 

 are designed for people interested in artistic-technical research which explores the possibilities for digital narratives in theatrical spaces, as well as their practical implementation. Fellows have researched a variety of digital methods (motion capture, coding, XR, VR, AR, sensor technologies, robotics, and more) across artistic fields including opera, dance, orchestra and drama. 

Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy

(HIDA), the Academy for Theatre and Digitality has offered joint research fellowships at the interface of digital art and cutting edge scientific research since 2021. The HIDA fellowships are kindly supported by the 

Artificial Intelligence

VR (Virtual Reality)

Interactive

Sound Design

Projection/Mapping

3D Printing

XR (Extended Reality)

AV (Audiovisual Design)

Theater Dortmund
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Management Team:

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Tobias Ehinger

Administrative Director
Martin Lizan

Director of the Opera
Heribert Germeshausen

Director of the Ballet
Xin Peng Wang

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Gabriel Feltz

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Julia Wissert

Director of the Children's and Youth Theater
Andreas Gruhn

Director of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality
Marcus Lobbes

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Fellowship

HIDA

PlayOn!

discover cutting-edge digital research in theatre and performance 
meet our research fellows and collaborators in the 

Portal: Academy for Theatre and Digitality

György Vidovszky is a theatre director and drama pedagogue from Budapest, Hungary, working as principal director in Kolibri Theatre, the leading theatre for children and youth in Hungary. He divides his time between Dublin and Budapest, since his family is living in Ireland, and he is a PhD student at Dublin City University. He has worked as a drama-and film teacher for seventeen years in Budapest. Since 2001 he has directed more than 60 productions, mainly for young audiences, in Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine, Romania, and Ireland. He has been a Board member of the Hungarian Centre of ASSITEJ since2010. He is part of the organizing team of the national ASSITEJ festival and represents Hungary in various international events, like the ASSITEJ World Congresses and Artistic Gatherings.

vidovszkygy.hu

György Vidovszky

The main question was how can we use the gaming dramaturgy for storytelling. We were also looking for the answer to how the form of an escape room can be mixed with the dramatic elements of the theatre.

In addition to the physical, manual riddles known in traditional escape rooms, the entire game is controlled by a computer. In addition, we use VR and AR via a tablet, a video game that can be played with a controller, an overhead projector and a cassette recorder. These elements make the interaction varied for the players and strengthen the context of the rooms coming from the future.

We wanted to explore whether parts of the story discovered in non-chronological order could be assembled into a whole story for the players. In other words, is it possible to tell a story in such a way that the spectators get only fragments of information in a random order? We aimed to discover how to make audience participation simple, interesting, relevant, and playful.

How did the collaborators work together on this project?


From the beginning, we involved specialists in the creative process who are not usually part of a theatre performance: interactive game designers, video game designers, and environment activists. In close consultation with them, we wrote the background story of the performance based on their creative ideas and then developed the various game elements.

The escape room can only be developed during testing because even if we think in advance about all possibcomplex and "illogicalities", it will only become clear in practice whether the spectators can solve our riddles. Tech is constantly at risk because players can touch anything in the room.

Did you use existing software and/or applications?


The game is controlled from outside the rooms by admins via a computer with unique software that was developed for the show. The VR and AR elements used in the rooms are customised versions of existing software.

What were the key milestones in the development of the production?


In the first phase, we dealt with a deeper understanding of the topic (global water shortage).

Parallel to this, we studied the logic and dramaturgy of interactive theatre games and video games with the involvement of our experts.

We worked parallel on the tech and script (and involved the designers, too). (Set- and costume designer, the visual designer of the application.) In order to make the audience interaction more excessive, we built two rooms so that fewer people get into one space. Since the set, in this case, is not just a background, but the players can do everything in them, the planning and execution required much more detailed elaboration. That is why we involved our professional partner, the students of the University of Fine Arts, in the development and execution of the details.

We needed a lot of pre-recorded video footage. First, we had to script them and make some trial recordings to rehearse with them.

Once the set and all the tech were finalised, we had two weeks of rehearsal – mainly in the form of test runs.
We had our official premiere on the 19th of June 2021.

The production is in the repertory of Kolibri Theatre and was played 38 times until the end of Jan 2024.

Our general experience is that the game elements' difficulty level is ideal: players encounter moderately difficult (i.e. solvable sooner or later) riddles in the rooms. From time to time, there are technical problems that hinder the smooth flow of the game. Although the audience can eventually piece together all the fragments of the story, it is challenging to keep their interest and concentration in the environmental theme of the performance during the play.

In what ways was the production a success?


The performance - primarily because of its unusual, unique form - received a strong press response. The escape room theatre is also a memorable experience for the student audience. In the last two seasons, the theatre played the show nearly forty times, although the technical preparation of each performance is highly time-consuming.

What elements of the final production would you change?


I would change some of the pre-recorded videos because their forced semi-documentary style is also the reason why they do not always hold the viewers' attention.

What advice would you give to artists taking a similar approach?


Give yourself enough time for testing because even the best preparation is not enough to guess the audience's reactions.

Team

Watergate - The Riddle of Time Crypts is an interactive escape theatre game about the negative effects of climate change. Our story takes place in two similar Time-Crypts, which came from an imagined future, an age when humanity's drinking water supply has been drastically reduced. Audiences are not passive spectators but active participants in the game, and with the help of messages from the future, they reveal individual details of the impending social and climate catastrophe. Whether they succeed in their mission or whether they can prevent the approaching danger depends on them. The future is in their hands.
___________________________________________________________
A Kolibri Theatre production as part of the Creative Europe project PlayOn! in collaboration with University of Fine Arts, Budapest and Rachel Brisco (freelance game expert, UK)

Watergate - The Riddle of Time-Crypts

Game Design

The most important question was to figure out what kind of story requires to be performed not inside the theatre venue, but on the street.

This is an audiowalk, so the audience listens to the performance with headphones on. The special thing about this performance is that they hear not only pre-recorded sound but also the actors' voices live. Another challenging technical solution was the use of AR. For this, we made a motion capture recording, and then with this avatar, the main character has a scene in the performance.

I was curious about how the audience’s focus can be led in a busy street or square, where anything can happen, and how the street turmoil can be incorporated into the performance. Also, whether many seemingly loosely connected episodes come together to form a complex experience.

How did the collaborators work together on this project?

The most important thing was the planning: since the performance consisted of many individual parts, we first saw how these separate elements were connected only during the run-throughs. Therefore, our collaborators often worked completely separately from each other.

One of the biggest challenges was adapting the live voice to the sound system, creating the avatar, and finally creating an application. They had many flaws.

Did you use existing software and/or applications?

We used existing motion capture recording software (Rokoko), but the coders developed AR software for the avatar. The app is called 

 and can be downloaded from known distributors (AppStore and Google Play)

Did any of your questions or goals change?

Now, I see how many hidden challenges there are to make a performance in a busy urban space.

What were the key milestones in the development of the production?

Finding the topic, then choosing the location (planning the route), technical preparation (motion capture recording - avatar; headphones, live sound), developing the text and story, rehearsals and testing.

The performance is a success that exceeds all expectations. We have created an audio walk that is more complex than any similar production that I or my experienced colleagues have seen before.

In what ways was the production a success?

On one hand, it can be considered successful due to its uniqueness, and on the other hand, due to the unusual genre, the spectator receives a special, incomparable experience.



What elements of the final production would you change?

There were parts of the show that I changed or left out before the premiere. But I would change the scene with the avatar if I could.



What advice would you give to artists taking a similar approach?

When you choose the route, observe not only the locations but also what usually happens there, as this information should be integrated into the performance.

Kolibri Theatre’s latest PlayOn! coproduction invites the audience on a special journey through time and space using immersive technologies and interactive elements. Realised within the framework of the ’Budapest Grand Novel’ project "Urbán legendák - A tartozás / Urban Legends - The Debt" invites the spectators to step out of the theatre space and into the city, where they can take part in an extraordinary "theatre audio walk" with headphones on their ears.  
 
The play is based on Renátó Fehér's "Kaleidoscope", originally published as the 6th District/Terézváros chapter of the Budapest Grand Novel, which was adapted for Kolibri Theatre by István Tasnádi. 

In the story, a father and son set out to collect a debt. They wander the streets of Terézváros from Jókai Square to Nyugati Railway Station but find only fragments of the past: objects from a lost exhibition from the change of regime, a homeless man from a better time, moments from the ever-changing, much-seen Nyugati Square. The surreal walk, full of surprises, ends with the evocative opening of the shopping mall next to the station. "We got home. We are at home finally." 
 

Urban Legends – The Debt 

The main question was how to integrate an immersive digital tool into an production. Our focus was to find a strong connection between the technology used in the production and the theme of the performance. 

We use a mobile phone application that allows the audience members to participate in the performance: they vote about the storyline, help the main character through the app, and discover locations relevant to the story. 

Giving some choices about the storyline into the hands of the audience members pushed us to discover how to structure a story with multiple subbranches but still keep it as one. Another new territory was to discover how to make audience participation simple, interesting, relevant, and playful. 

At the start, we have created working groups. Since Teatr Ludowy was interested in working with a voting app in their production (1984), too, we started to discover the possibilities together with them. We had involved Ben Kirman from the University of York as an expert, who had worked on a similar app (O Bando: Football) that allowed the audience members to vote during the show. At one point in the preparation phase, Teatr Ludowy decided to use an existing voting app (reaction.link) but we (Kolibri Theatre) continued working with Ben Kirman, who, in the end, created the app for the production from scratch. In the following months, we worked on the script and the app in parallel, developing them together

In order to make sure that all audience members have an undisturbed, technically relaxed way of participating in the show, we decided to buy as many phones as big as the auditorium is (40 people) and set up all these phones with the app. Finding suitable phones, operating them remotely, and figuring out why some phones are delayed or don’t react at all from time to time was a big challenge. We went through many technical fine tunings and testing before we could finalise the application.

It was all developed by Ben Kirman (University of York). We wanted to use the app (not only simple voting) for all the different purposes, but we could not find any existing software. By having our own software, we had more freedom artistically, too.

We started to work on the script written some years ago for another production with quite a different setting (Traitor by Esther Richardson and Cecilie Lundsholt, 2017). After having decided that we had to change many elements in the script to make it work in our venue using a mobile phone app (replacing the interaction that was intended in the original script), we started working with a playwright (Attila Eck) to transform the script.

The next step was deciding about the application and discovering what possibilities it would give us regarding interaction and storytelling. We worked parallel on the app and the script, and we involved the designers too; set and costume designers, and the visual designer of the application.

We needed a lot of pre-recorded video footage. First we had to script them, and we made some trial recordings to rehearse with them. Once the script, the app and the set were finalised, we had four weeks of rehearsal - mainly in the venue. We had a pre-premiere in June 2022 and the official premiere in October 2022. The production is in the repertory of Kolibri Theatre and was played 25 times until the end of May 2023.

The creators and Kolibri Theatre are satisfied with the outcome of the production. The production was a challenge in many ways: mainly technically and because of its content. After fine-tuning the age group (we moved it from 14+ to 15+), the production runs successfully, evoking big debates among young people after the show at our regular outreach programs. 

The critical reception of the production is very positive, and interest for the production is more extensive than what the theatre has expected. We played it 25 times this season and will continue in the next season too. But our major success is that the production can provoke our young audiences and lead to fruitful discussions about responsibility and decision-making. 

I think the script focuses too much on the production's content and deals too little with the background of the characters. I would change and extend that to create more three-dimensional characters, which are not 'only' representing some issues connected to the topic in the production.

Give yourself enough time to work on the software and find the right balance between the usage of technology and the content of the production.

Traitor is an interactive theatre production in which audience members become participants with the help of a mobile phone application, though which they can interact live with the story. The topic of the show is the dilemma of increasing surveillance technology: freedom or security, do we prefer to be monitored 24/7 by cameras everywhere for our safety, or do we have the right to live with the risk of freedom? Our privacy is at stake. We operate many digital elements simultaneously in the show, which is not only part of the visual elements but also vital in this production. The whole
story is about the importance of our personal responsibility and decision-making that the audience members are forced into – thanks to immersive technology. The dramaturgical and visual form of the production becomes the central element of the “message” of the play.

RESEARCH PLATFORM

Academy for Theatre and Digitality

György Vidovszky

Theatre Director

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