Hinterlands (2023)
It was a truly immersive, touching and multi-worldly experience, spending the December month of 2023 collaborating as a dancer for Rebecca Evan’s Hinterlands research and development phase in 2023 and the incredible team (see below)… Visit Rebecca’s website here: PELL ENSEMBLE
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WHAT AUDIENCES SAY SO FAR…..
‘Did not want to leave’
‘Incredible, Magical Space’
‘The dancing was gorgeous, especially the merging of the three dancers and the entity.’
‘Beautiful, otherworldly experience.’
‘I like the creature gradually unravelling and building to the point where it is connected to the dancers and you.’
‘I loved this place and would like to go back now and again.’
‘Loved the digital and physical interaction, it felt almost more than real’
‘A bit speechless’
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Inspired by microorganisms called extremophiles that live on the edge of habitability, in some of earth’s most inhospitable environments, Hinterlands is a mixed reality headset experience about the speculative futures of human evolution. Movement, spatial sound and augmented reality come together to create a space that unfolds differently for you and the dancers.
Through an invitation to move, you will explore our entanglement with the natural and digital world and our possibilities for surviving, evolving and becoming.
The team explored live motion capture streamed to headset to move a non-humanoid entity in mixed reality using passthrough mode to three untethered Pico 4s.
(Wearing a headset you will see both the real world around you and a mixed reality layer. At certain points, the dancers’ movements will move and affect the augmented layers through the use of a motion capture suit).
Three dancers and three audience members navigate this space through a structured improvisational score.
What has been created is a three-part experience over 20 minutes that considers how extending participants’ kinaesthetic and spatial awareness in MR heightens senses and possibly connection to self, other and environment.
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Hinterlands In production
Direction and Choreography Rebecca Evans
Lead Creative Technologist Clemence Debaig of Unwired Studio
Animation and VFX Alexander MacKinnon
Creative Technologists Rebecca Evans , Jon Higgins
Sound Artist Christian Duka
Dramaturg Joanne Skapinker
Intimacy and Consent Coordination Mira Loew
Original Dancers Ania Varez, Jan-Ming Lee, Anna Kaszuba
Producer Ombeond
Mentoring and support Alexander Whitely and Naomi Smyth
Video/Photograph: Alice Underwood
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