we meet in the woods (a WIP)
an opportunity to flex our collectivism muscles whilst having a silly time in the woods
I have been thinking a lot about audiences, and how we empower each other to feel safe, to participate in the making of a piece of work, and make them/ourselves fundamental to the piece/show/experience. How exciting it is when theatre and its adjacent art forms really hinge on someone’s presence. If the show would be the same if the audience wasn’t there, maybe that isn’t theatre anymore?
WE MEET IN THE WOODS is some kind of theatrical, spatial narrative game about environment, play, collectivism and risk-taking; solo-player narrative choice and consequences within constellation of other “players” and stories.
It almost definitely isn’t a choose-your-own-adventure story where at the end you’ve Solved The Climate Crisis.
it might involve:
WE MEET IN THE WOODS is some kind of theatrical, spatial narrative game about environment, play, collectivism and risk-taking; solo-player narrative choice and consequences within constellation of other “players” and stories.
It almost definitely isn’t a choose-your-own-adventure story where at the end you’ve Solved The Climate Crisis.
it might involve:
- audio storytelling that guides an individual around a particular environment (a city? a forest? a ferry somewhere in the Bristol Channel?)
- “checkpoints” where players collide with one another to influence/enable/mess with the trajectory of each others’ stories
- “save points”, moments of convergence/collective storytelling between multiple players
- “rest points” which contain zero plot and are for pure sensation (or the exact opposite, depending on the needs & wants of the individual!)
some questions:
- how might this involve/require a “cast”? or not?
- to what extent is it possible for a participant to ‘act freely’ within the narrative? (C-Y-O-A games become so sprawlingly unwieldy so fast; would this be like that? could it be otherwise?)
- how might it hinge on/adapt to its physical environment? is there a world in which it can be copy/pasted onto a new space, or is it embedded in a particular microclimate?
- what role might audio, video, or physical design elements play in narrative/placemaking?
it is hooked into an interrogation of the ways in which we (workers, individuals, voters, families, nations) are atomised by design, and how we might break out
actively seeking collaborators for this project, so if it sounds like something you’d be into, please get in touch