Nomads
completedPlayOn!
Summary"Sway, move, come on! That's the only way to escape him. He who rules the world has no power over movement, and he knows that our body in motion is holy. He can only exert power over what's motionless and immobilized, over what's passive and inert." in Bieguni by Olga Tokarczuk. NOMADS is a theatrical creation based on Bieguni, a short story in the book "Flights", from Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature.
NOMADS tells the story of a woman (Annuszka) in an urban context, entangled in a common life, who, from the moment when she meets an indigent homeless woman (Galina), abandons her family, and spends the following months traversing metro lines, travelling non-stop, refusing to go back home. Every night Annuszka and Galina meet, walk around the city looking for shelter, and talk about freedom and safety. A show about immobility and not being able to stop. About darkness. About vigilance. About the ways to defend ourselves against the claws of the power that wants to tie our hands: to never stop thinking, to be in constant inner movement.
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A Teatro O Bando production as part of the Creative Europe project PlayOn!
Introduction
The main question was how to transform all the show room in a hybrid stage that interrogates the place of the audience and how to behave as an audience member.
We use technology on stage to reflect the way we use it in our everyday life: robot, video and surveillance cameras.
Our intention is to contribute with more questions and not more answers. We’re facing incredible fast changes in the relations between humans and machines. And we want to use our art, theatre, to ask people to stop and reflect with us about it, instead of going forward and forward with knowing the direction and without thinking on the consequences.
Creative Process
How did the collaborators work together on this project?
We design and creative process in a way that allows every member of the artistic team to propose exercises, ideas and improvisation work with the actresses.
What forms of trial-and-error occurred?
We tried LIDAR sensors and other forms of movement captures technology to use on stage. With all the tests we made, we conclude that because of the idea of having a lot of audience on stage, it will be hard to make it reliable.
Did you use existing software and/or applications?
We use ISADORA, TOUCHDESIGNER to manage surveillance cameras, to address the video to the outputs and to capture images of the audience in real time.
What were the key milestones in the development of the production?
To engage the audience on stage and to use the images capture in real time to improve the reflection about the way we use technology in our daily life, based on the concepts of freedom and security.
