THEATRE INSIDE

A virtual theatre. What kind of thoughts and emotions can it evoke? According to the announcement of the WHIST project presented by the Goethe-Zentrum Baku, it was going to be a one-hour session where one could immerse in interactive and extended reality of a physical theatre.

The virtual composition is based on the story of a single family. However, this story has 76 different versions of the same plot. The most intriguing thing is that each of these versions can develop as your subconscious “programs” it. An attempt to explore our subconscious mind in this way seems not entirely convincing and even amusing. It is also funny that the viewing is not recommended for ages under eighteen and sensitive people.

WHIST

In Russian, the name of the project is pronounced as vist, which has a double meaning. The first refers to a card game, which develops memory, logical thinking, and tactics, while the second means dumb, silent, reticent. Interpretation of both meanings is quite consistent with the plot: the game played by the characters indeed resembles the popular card game whist, whereas the performance is devoid of any textual accompaniment. Rather it is based on gestures, looks, eurhythmics, and facial expressions of actors. You will get headphones and special glasses to see the virtual action on stage. The sound content includes some music and occasional pieces of text to convey the thoughts of characters to you in a better way. You will soon immerse in all-round virtual reality which literally surrounds you. It is a strange feeling indeed, as you suddenly find yourself in the epicentre of action and can randomly be in front of any of the characters. If you are in between the two characters, you can turn to the left or to the right, change your virtual position to watch them and their actions better. The whole story consists of seven varying compositions. According to the authors of the project, Aoi Nakamura and Esteban Fourmi, they are shaped thanks to the selective function of your subconscious. Although this sounds not very convincing, but to prove the contrary is impossible either. Whatever the reasons may be, the combination of modern cinematic techniques in the project gives an idea not only about the development of modern technologies, but also about the European view of contemporary art. The authors use different techniques such as dances, physical theatre, random exteriors, and artistic means of expression to convey the main idea of the plot and different views on the problems of the modern world. That's what the WHIST is.

Prologue

There is a room with three people sitting at a round table and covering their faces with their hands: a man in light-coloured clothes, a woman in a black dress and another man in a burgundy jacket. They are silent. They do not even move. This is one of the versions of the prologue. In another version, we can see two women (in white and black) and a man. You are on the top of the table, actually hovering above it, and discover each of the characters by revolving around your axis. It feels funny! After discovering the three characters, you assume that the plot will unfold around them. No way!..

As the plot unwinds…

In the next story, which resembles the structure of a chimerical dream, you see a girl getting out of a willow chest in a room with white walls and doors. Around her are standing white dummies of human figures of unknown sex. The girl is half-dressed. She is tearing around the perimeter of the room writing it over with hieroglyphics. We can occasionally hear her words, the thoughts addressed to her father. She is speaking and writing at the same time. It seems she will never stop writing… There is a bunch of crayons in her hands and scattered all over the floor. There are a lot of them, and they do not run out. Finally, the girl gets into the chest again, and everything disappears in the dark. The problem of the girl (according to Freud) is in her relationship with her father, which creates certain pattern of emotions later in her adult life. The next story revolves around a cage with suspended something looking like a cast of the heart. Initially, we see an elderly man with a blurred face and an accordion. Then we see a young pair, a woman and a man. They are dancing. The cage and the music of accordion is between them. Later, the old man with accordion leaves, as if dissolving in the space of the room.

Now we have another plot. We can see a sofa and an armchair in the room. Some sheets of paper and other things are scattered on the couch and on the floor. A man is picking up these things looking for something. Finally, he discovers a girl sitting in the armchair with its back to the audience. She is throwing out tennis balls. Then she appears briefly while the man is trying to interact with her. Circling around the perimeter of the room, she hides in the armchair again. The man turns the chair towards us but, instead of the girl, he discovers a huge amount of tennis balls pouring onto him. Emptiness. The girl was an illusion. Then, someone's hands (obviously, man's) are trying to extract organs from the body of the girl. She is in somnambular condition. She seems to be struggling to understand what exactly she feels…

Culmination

Three people around the table. We saw them in the prologue. The old man with accordion is also there, standing aside. On the table is a dish with human organs. They look like hearts, many of them. But this is not true. The girl takes one of the hearts with her fork and puts it on her plate. By the end of the story, we can see a pile of hearts on here plate. She dexterously works with her knife and fork cutting hearts into pieces. The men have something else. But one needs to know how the internal organs look in order to understand the ongoing event. This is a feast. Everyone enjoys food in his or her own way. At some point, you can see that the girl's arms are in blood, and a new character appears in the opening of the window. This is a man in a wig, a woman dress and a sheepskin coat. He takes the place of the man in a burgundy jacket, who then goes through a special door and returns in night clothes with an African mask in his hands, which he hangs on the wall and becomes an observer observing the ongoing events.

Denouement

Three characters from the prologue appear in a snow-white room with four doors. They are constantly moving from one door to another and are looking for each other. But it looks strange. In fact, none of them wants to be found, discovered or accidentally caught. Does any of them really want to find another? Are they looking for each other by inertia? Who is looking for whom? It is up to the viewer to decide; a decision that can change the meaning of everything. Moreover, this hour-long virtual program is entirely based upon Freud's teachings on psychoanalysis.

Epilogue

This scene has a very imaginative solution. The virtual space that you see revolving around its axis is divided into four segments, which resemble four paintings from the four epochs of art: Renaissance, Realism, Surrealism, and Post-modernism. They are fading away very slowly and finally turn into a point in space. Their earthly journey ended. Somewhere out there, in the depths of the Cosmos, they have a completely different life. Which one? You are left alone with a myriad of stars, this question and your thoughts about what you just saw on stage... It seems that you are floating in this space with the stars...

Fantasy or reality?

The more intensive is the development of technologies, the more often we can hear statements about the decreasing role of the traditional theatre, which have existed for more than two and half thousand years, and its replacement with the virtual theatre. Yet it's hard to believe. It is possible however, that the theatre, as a form of individual consumption of intellectual art, can have a certain place in our society. It reminds me Ray Bradbury’s short-story The Veldt, where the children enter into a special room and create a virtual world with the power of their imagination, which is so similar to the world of physical reality… The dividing line between fantasy and reality is getting blur. Perhaps in time, we’ll realize that we are standing on the verge of yet another discovery, and the technologies described in fictions will turn into everyday reality. Perhaps... Still, living theatre, a theatre of momentary creativity will live as long as the human soul is alive.

About the authors

This joint creative project of the Kapellhaus and AFE Dance Company has an educational purpose, according to the supervisor of cultural and educational projects Asli Samedova. This is not the first and only project that attempts to ensure that our compatriots, who do not have opportunity to travel to other countries and get acquainted with new art developments, see the innovations in Baku. Creative search of Aoi Nakamuri and Esteban Fourmi is associated with the art of dance. They are always in search of new forms of self-expression. This project goes beyond the generally accepted concepts of dance as a form of art. Aoi and Esteban have already been demonstrated it in Europe, Asia, and Australia. The project involves a large number of people including actors, designers, artists, screenwriters, composers, performers, operators, etc. The authors were pleased to learn that the audience in Baku could perfectly comprehend the form of presentation and content. The sessions were accompanied by improvised discussions between the spectators, organisers and authors. In a small room of the Kapellhaus, everyone could learn absolutely free of charge about the new findings, experiments, technologies in various areas of art.