Four performers move within a cross-shaped dance floor in the middle of the room, demarcated with white tape. They are accompanied by four visitors who stand close to the performers. Four performers, four visitors, four fields of action of equal size arranged around an empty center. The performers hold a controller in their right or left hands, which accompanies the arm or hand movements directed towards their own bodies. A self-initiated drawing of parts of their own body, the measuring of their own body space through linear arm movements and moments of pause alternate. “Look at me!” – The focus of the performers’ movements and the address of their dance movements are aligned with their respective partners. They wear VR glasses and move close to and with ‘their’ performers, while at the same time observing them discreetly and at a distance.
Beautiful Connection
Based on the success of the VR performance “I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE – Duette für einen Kopf und zwei Hände” (2022), Anna-Carolin Weber and Tobias Kopka together with their interdisciplinary artistic team develop the format of “VR dance encounters” as a multiplayer performance. The mixed-reality dance performance “BEAUTIFUL CONNECTION: A Social Performance Training” brings together 8 people who – equipped with VR headsets or VR hand controllers – move around in physical space and at the same time interact in a virtual environment using a 3D drawing program. Guided by moderation and tasks, a hybrid playing field is opened up in which visitors and performers negotiate decision-making processes and interactions at the interface of physical and virtual space in a non-verbal dialog: How to negotiate to engage in a common level of action: Who leads, who follows, who picks up, who drops?
Following the performances in Munich and try-out performances labs in Alfter and Cologne, in which the perceptual-aesthetic functional principles of the multiplayer performance “BEAUTIFUL CONNECTION” were artistically explored, the work is now to be further developed. With a view to a social and political mode of action, the project team is investigating the options for control, decision-making and action that the hybrid functional principles entail in the interaction of 8 people in a stage space.
Multiplayer choreographies embody new challenges of governance with questions about the appropriate rules and frameworks for living together in hybrid spaces. How do we behave cooperatively when we are on different levels of perception in the same physical space? How do we perceive each other, how do we communicate with each other while we are physically co-present – and yet at the same time in our own bubbles of perception?
Performances
March, 1st & 2nd 2023, Pathos Theater, Munich (Performance Premiere)
July, 10th & 11th 2023, Summer Academy at Alanus University, Alfter (Performance Lab)
August, 15th & 16th 2023, SomaFest – XR with all senses, Cologne Game Lab, TH Köln (Performance Lab)
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Credits
Artistic direction: Anna-Carolin Weber & Tobias Kopka
Dramaturgy: René*e Reith
Performance: Phillip Dittmann, Helena Miko, René*e Reith, Anna-Carolin Weber
Sound design & DJing: Philip Kühn
Light Installation & Design: Jasper Gather in cooperation with Marlon Brodda
Artistic Assistance: Phillip Dittmann
Virtual Reality Operations: Max Kolb
Live Videography: Alessandro De Matteis
Funding
The production “BEAUTIFUL CONNECTION: A Social Performance Training” (2023) is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the NEUSTART KULTUR program, tanz:digital aid program of the Dachverband Tanz Deutschland. With the kind support of PATHOS Munich, Tanztheater Schlebusch and Curatomic.
The two performance labs “BEAUTIFUL CONNECTION: A Social Performance Training” take place at the invitation of the Künstler:innen vor Ort program of the 2023 Summer Academy at the Alanus University and as part of the Artists in Residence program at the invitation of SomaFest – XR mit allen Sinnen 2023 at the Cologne Game Lab.