VR Theatre: Talks & Roundtable Discussion

This event invites the Scottish theatre and digital arts communities to join together for 

-  6 different 5 minute talks by artists currently making work in this field. Hear about some exciting VR theatre, mixed reality experiences and digital innovation in live performance. 

- A Q&A with the artists. Ask questions and hear more about these ongoing projects. 

- Roundtable discussions.  Attendees split into breakout rooms for group discussions on VR Theatre in Scotland - our questions and visions for it's future. A chance to meet other folks working and interested in this space, discuss your own projects, seek advice and build community. Each group will choose from one of our discussion topics or discuss something that's on your mind!

THE TALKS!

Mel Frances (she/her) for Produced Moon

Produced Moon’s work exists at the intersection of digital art and theatre and is all about play. Our work is often interactive and ranges from video games to board games, scavenger hunts to websites, audio performances to escape rooms, live performances to virtual reality. Produced Moon is a collaboration between queer neurodivergent theatre and digital artist Leonie Rae Gasson and digital storyteller and creative mathematician Mel Frances.

Mel will talk about Produced Moon’s latest work in development: A piece of VR Theatre, called Einstein's Dreams. It’s inspired by Alan Lightman's international bestelling text about Einstein discovering the theory of relativity, through a process of dreaming. Our ‘Einstein’s Dreams’ will tell the story of our attempt to make a similar groundbreaking discovery by looking at our dreams. It’s a show about our longing for understanding, about dreams, warped time, and particle physics.

Rachel Colles (She/her) for Dirliebane

I am a performer, co-artistic director and therapeutic clown. I run a theatre clown company with my colleague Fiona Ferrier called Dirliebane (Scots for funnybone). We make theatre clown shows and films developed with and created for children and young people based around key aspects of their lives.

I will be talking about our research project BOUNCE VR exploring virtual reality theatre for primary aged children. We have filmed our show BOUNCE in VR with and without audience, with effects and with integrated BSL. The next stage is working with children in 4 schools alongside live performance finding out what they like, don’t like and are curious about.

Jideofor Muotune (he/him) & Kyalo Searle-Mbullu (he/him)

My name is Jideofor (Pronounced - Jee-dof-a) Muotune. I’m a black man and my pronouns are he and him. I’m a multi – platform content creator with over 30 years combined experience in the music and broadcasting industries. I'm passionate about using the arts to facilitate nuanced conversions around race in Scotland. I'm interested in the intersection between technology and art and am developing a theatrical piece using augmented reality to tell the story of Bernie Grant's visit to Glasgow in 1997 during which he asked for the Benin Bronzes held in Glasgow's museums to be returned.

My talk will explain how I came across the story i.e. whilst making a podcast series about the scale and history of the Benin Bronzes held in Glasgow's museums. I'll talk about how my research brought me into contact with a filmmaker who had accompanied Bernie to Glasgow and filmed the request and Bernie's reactions, the most powerful of which was his visceral response on seeing them in Kelvingrove. The piece I'm developing will include an imagined conversation between the Bronze and Bernie using augmented reality. The piece will also involve dramatic recreations of his meeting with the museum's gatekeepers and showcases the institutionally racist attitudes of the time.

Caron-Jane Lyon (they/her) for PCM Immersive

Caron is a theatre and projects producer with a 20 year career as a stage manager and 10 years as a social technologies entrepreneur. They are currently in R&D to produce tourable theatre experiences that blend physical performance and auditorium space with Virtual Production and Extended Reality mechanics to stage extraordinary, new work that reaches audiences who wouldn’t ordinarily see live theatre. The PCM immersive Company plans to take their first show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 before embarking on a 9 week UK tour.

There is an untapped global audience who remotely attend film festivals participating in VR films and live VR theatre. This journey to blend Physical, Digital and Virtual into a single simultaneous experience is where Caron found themself as a Creative Producer at the start of 2022. Theatre is as much about the audience as it is the production. What does a Metaverse Audience Palace entail?

Pooja Katara (she/her) for SENSEcity

An architect from India, Pooja Katara moved to Glasgow to pursue her Master’s in Architectural Studies at the Mackintosh School of Architecture. What started as a humble thesis project during her Master’s Programme ended up winning several awards, and took the shape of SENSEcity and she accidentally turned into an entrepreneur!. With SENSEcity she aims to connect people and places through meaningful stories and interactive experiences.

She will talk about a product that her team is developing called Historiscope which is an Augmented Reality enabled tourist telescope at Heritage Sites. The project has been supported by Innovate UK, Historic Environment Scotland and Creative Informatics.

Leonie Rae Gasson (she/her)

Gloaming: Two groups gather on opposite sides of the world, one at dawn and one at dusk, each in a multi-sensory art installation. Making their way through the set, the audiences are given VR headsets allowing them to conjure new ways of interacting with each other, exploring virtual & physical touch. Their guide, a live motion-capture dancer, who brings the two audiences together at dawn and dusk across the globe in this multi-reality adventure in togetherness.

Gloaming is a prototype developed by two UK based artists - queer neurodivergent immersive theatre director Leonie Rae Gasson and innovative digital artist Dave Lynch - and Canada based Head of Shocap studios Athomas Goldberg. The team were brought together as part of the UK-Canada Immersive Exchange and recently presented the Gloaming prototype at SXSW, Texas. Also part of the team is physical set designer Rosie Elnile and choreographer Olivia Davies.

This event is for

• Theatre creatives, programmers, venue staff, producers
• Digital creatives, developers, producers
• Those with no experience of VR and those with lots

The event is the second in a series of VR Theatre Roundtable events curated by Produced Moon as part of our ongoing project Developing a VR Toolkit for Theatre.  The event will be hosted by Mel and Leo from Produced Moon.

This event will be BSL interpreted.

This event will be captioned using Zoom captioning.

Bursaries

If you are unsalaried and there is a financial barrier to you attending this event, we can pay 6 artists a £62 bursary each (2 hours at SAU rates). Please indicate in your registration form that you would like a bursary, no ‘proof’ or documentation is required.

Please register by 11am on Monday 2nd May if you’d like a bursary. If the bursaries are oversubscribed we will distribute to ensure there is a range of job roles and industry backgrounds represented. 

If there is anything else we can do to support your participation, or make the event more accessible for you, get in touch with us on admin@producedmoon.co.uk

This event is funded through by Creative Scotland.