🪄Expand the Theatre Magic

Wayfinding: Taxonomy > Remix Theatre > Expand the Theatre Magic

In Remix Theatre, various media and their affordances and/or errors are combined with intention and precision. the malleability of media in both theatrical and digital forms with the term ‘expanded theatre magic’, in which the ‘flexibility of digital technology lends a level of perceived flexibility and transformation to performance places’, which range from in-person theatre buildings to internet sites. There are more options for performance spaces, performers, and other elements than ever, expanding the theatre’s magic; however, the choice of each element relies on semiotic conventions that define those based on the maker’s dramaturgical intent. Remix dramaturgies overlap these semiotics and aesthetics to create cohesive dramaturgical meaning.

This ‘expanded theatre magic’ is conveyed using digital programs and artworks rather than the stage as primary communication device and does not require liveness but can incorporate liveness into the dizzying cabaret-collage. Michael Deacon coined the phrase ‘scale of liveness’ which Creation Theatre constantly engaged with as they experimented with digital tools. He told me that Creation often asks themselves: ‘what can we do better? What can we do that’s more interesting to do, what techniques can we use, what technology can we use? But also, then how that impacts from an audience perspective and dramaturgical perspective and a narrative perspective: How those things all change, depending on what you use and how you do that has a massive impact there’. Though Creation’s digital work often incorporates livestreamed performers with digital effects, for Deacon, it was more important to consider the theatre magic conveyed to the audience through these tools, with liveness being one tool for engaging with narrative. For some shows like their 2021 A Christmas Carol, Creation purposefully used pre-recorded actors and virtual effects instead, as the symbolism of these elements served the show which was a series of short videos accompanying a delivered kit meal preparation process [See also: Other Digital Theatre].

Andrew Hungerford led Know Theatre’s season programming in a remixed direction, attempting to expand creative projects not only to entice audiences, but to try new modes of making work. For several shows, this meant experimenting with live versus pre-recorded, reactive digital tools versus actual humans, socially distanced shows with projection mapping, and more. He said, regarding their Covid-safe, transmedia, digitally native production of Caridad Svich’s Theatre: A Love Story:

… we originally planned the possibility of performing entirely live as livestreaming, but always with the intention of layering pre-recorded video on top of it. So, we actually recorded each section of the play in different locations, both in our theatre and the other locations around the city: a disused theatre that's an old vaudeville house that's been abandoned for a number of years; back at the church we’d recorded in before; and in a greenhouse. We would always tape out the lines on the floor in the same way, so we could composite all the footage. We had a series of monologues that were livestreamed that interconnected with this other footage, and we also had dancers perform – in each space, but not at the same time as the actors, so that then, we layered all of that footage on top of each other and could bleed from one timeline to the other in a way that was like taking the number of performances you would have over a run and collapsing them in on themselves, so that you could explore different moments in different ways.

Hungerford notes several points that define Remix Theatre, including the layering of footage (‘collage’), multiple times and spaces ('transmedia'), and the integration of prior accidental discoveries (‘glitches’) with intention into the dramaturgy.