IMPROV IN 5 DIMENSIONS
The Project
A colour, magical, and layered experience which uses a combination of old-school overhead projectors, digital projection, live original music, and physical clownery.
Using a series of relatively simple tools and technical magic this project integrates six live performers from across the globe in a non-traditional, mostly unscripted improv multimedia performance.
Artists
A colourful portrait of two human faces swirling in a vortex.
-
Mind of a Snail is a shadow puppetry duo located on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC. Since 2003, Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel have been developing a multilayered style of visual storytelling using overhead projectors as their main light source, and have been recently integrating live video and interactive live-streaming into their tool kit. Their performances play at the intersection of puppetry, visual arts, clowning & music.
They have created original work for many organizations, including Vancouver Art Gallery, Telus World of Science, Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon and numerous others. They have also performed in theatre & arts festivals across Canada such as Wildside Festival in Montreal, Revolver Festival in Vancouver, Summerworks in Toronto, Casteliers International Puppetry Festival in Montreal, Festival International des Arts de la Marionnette à Saguenay and many more. International highlights include a tour of Taiwan 2017 & performing on the mainstage of the Puppeteers of America Festival in Minneapolis in 2019 with their show “Caws & Effect”. During covid, they quickly pivoted to an interactive online format and have performed live virtually for a number of festivals across Canada & internationally, including Festival Internacional de Teatro de Sombras in Brazil and Red Pearl Clown Festival in Finland.
The Residency
Before the DDI
This pair was very much looking forward to working in group circumstances after the isolation of the pandemic. The improvisers were working in six different time zones; there was an actual physical time and geography at play. But due to the technological aspects, the group needed to explore ideas of immediacy, to find out how they could work together across space and time, while utilizing different technologies.
During the residency
This residency was shaped by the upcoming performance that the team had booked two weeks following the DDI week. Experimentations in terms of theatrical layout and digital integrations were done with a specific performance space and set parameters in mind. The theatre was set up with various cameras, screens, projectors, computers and microphones while the digital participants were given links to a vdo.ninja room so that they could join in remotely as well as a link to a mesh.io feed so that they could monitor the main camera in the room.
Using a combination of live camera feeds from the virtual performers as well as analog overhead projectors with various props, the duo was able to create live improvised performances with guests from anywhere in the world.
From their prior experience as well as through the week’s experiments, it became clear that there is always some amount of latency, so there was work to see how that can be integrated and worked with in terms of creating a cohesive performance. There were also discoveries around the quality of the feeds from the virtual performers, such as if even one performer has a lot of background noise and their mic is on it quickly becomes an issue in the performance.
Listening became an important precedent for the improvisational performance that the group wished to create. Starting with standard improvisational theatre forms, the group went on to experiment with new forms that incorporated technology. This represented a substantial new discovery during the week. The group created frames for the improvisors that they were able to work with-with the idea that they would all present as one body during the show, as a kind of handmade collage.
Post Residency
The residency was an incredibly inspiring experience where they were able to test drive their proof of concept and based on the discoveries of this week they had a list of tech needs that they knew they needed to go over with the participants before the start of the show. They are looking forward to developing this further to create an evening length live show.
Shortly after the residency, Mind of a Snail performed their show as part of Vancouver’s 2021 Improv Fest at the Cultch.
Tools Used
OBS
vdo.ninja
meshcast.io
