INTERVIEW: Technodramatists are ready to experiment
Photo: Emcee Bess Miller welcomes the audience as Technodramatists’ William Shakespeare. Photo courtesy of Austin Pogrob / Provided by Kampfire PR with permission.
The Technodramatists theater group are on the cutting-edge of performance art and storytelling, clearly evidenced by their latest project, the Technodramatists Performance Laboratory, which is up and running until June 22 on West 36th Street in New York City.
Each night that the Performance Laboratory is open, experimental musicians will take the stage and try out new material. There will also be some augmented reality performers and interactive storytelling exhibits. Audience members are invited to immerse themselves in the creativity.
The group is especially excited to showcase weARlive, believed to be the first augmented reality face-sync app specifically designed for live performance. Theatergoers will even get a chance to use the technology before and after the show.
As part of the performance laboratory, the Technodramatists will also present selections from Error: A Comedy Of, which is actor Claire Tyers’ exploration of William Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors. The performance is augmented with real-time motion capture animation.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Lorne Svarc, artistic director of the Technodramatists. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How would you describe the Technodramatists Performance Laboratory to a newcomer?
Technodramatists Performance Laboratory is a showcase of how emerging technologies like augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and motion capture can be used as powerful tools to enhance live performance, art and storytelling.
What can audience members expect during your June programming?
Once audiences get off the elevator at Theaterlab they will be ensconced in our Production Laboratory and will have a few minutes to explore different interactive exhibits we’ve created sort of as an introduction to some of these technologies like augmented and mixed realities, that most people have heard of but aren’t sure exactly what they are. Then they will move into the theatre for the main event: two acts consisting of an experimental music set, followed by improv comedy and a pair of short plays, which all will be using different forms of weARlive, our face sync application.
What makes you excited about Error: A Comedy Of?
Just a few years motion capture technology was so expensive that you basically had to be Marvel or Disney to be able to use it. Now we’ve built an app that uses the 3D sensor built into smart phones that’s able to achieve professional level facial tracking with something that most people already have in their pocket. We’re able to fully customize what the phone does with the data its getting, allowing performers to accurately mirror the facial movements of any sort of character, realistic, stylized or abstract.
As soon as I figured out how to make this tech work, I knew that there could be incredible applications for live performance, and once I showed it to Noa [Egozi] (the director) she took it places I never could have dreamed of. She’s a classic theatre artist through and through, and it was amazing to watch the different ways her and Claire, our performer, discovered how to humanize this technology. You’re not just watching a brilliant solo show, and you’re not just watching an animated production. What the audience will experience is far greater than the sum of its parts.
When did you get your start in theater and performance?
For me it was always about storytelling. I wanted to write, and I wanted to to get my work out there. In college I was mostly working in film, and this was pre-digital, pre-YouTube, where it was difficult and expensive to produce and share high quality work. So when I moved back to Canada after I graduated, I gathered creative folks I knew from the Montreal art scene and started writing and producing theatre around the city. I was captivated by the immediacy and ephemeral nature of theatre. I love how you could just come up with an idea and bring it to life in real time.
What’s the long-term plan for the Technodramatists?
Part of the joy of what we’re doing is that the tech possibilities grow greater almost literally every day. We’re going to keep developing the projects and tools we’re showcasing at Technodramatists Performance Laboratory while adopting and integrating all the exciting new innovations that come about. Actually, right as we open, Apple is releasing it’s new ARKit, the platform that our app is built on, and rumor has it the 3D sensors will be able to track fully body movement. So that’s definitely something we’ll be adding to our app really soon. More generally, we think that augmented reality can become a mainstream theatre tool like lighting and projections and aim to be at the forefront of achieving this.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Technodramatists Performance Laboratory runs through June 22 at TheaterLab on West 36th Street in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
