How can the use social media be effective for an immersive theatre performance?
- Group research question
Initially, we wanted to perform at the jail and have an immersive performance. We wanted to research about mental health issues, so our question was: “How does performing a play in a prison gives the audience a new perspective on mental health issues?”. After doing research we saw how the topic of isolation, immigrants and femininity were especially interesting, so we researched those areas. Since the topics needed to be more specific, we decided to focus on the theme of isolation. Finally, our question was: “How can we use immersive theatre to explore the theme of isolation?”.
- Individual research question
One key challenge was to adapt our previous ideas and research that we wanted to portrait, to a performance in a digital setting. I learned how, the steps that we followed at the beginning of the process, could be applied at this stage of the process again. Thus, I once again followed the instructions given by Lois Weaver of her masterclass on how to do a research-based practice performance.
The first step was to write the main question, which in the case of my group was: “How can we use immersive theatre to explore the theme of isolation?” (Weaver, 2020).
The second step was to think of three sub-questions. For this sub-question, I focused on the point of view of the scriptwriter and dramaturge. The questions were the following: “How do we explore the theme of isolation whilst being isolated? How can I portrait the theme of isolation with digital tools? How can the use social media be effective for and immersive theatre performance?” (Weaver, 2020).
From these questions, she asks you to pick one of them, the one that you chime more with, and the one you think is going to be more complex to answer. I chose: “How can the use social media be effective for and immersive theatre performance?” (Weaver, 2020).
Then, you must write down five things that I could do to answer this question, which were: Look for other performances on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat)?, look for amateur social media performances, what process do they follow?, analyse influencers, how do they affect us unconsciously?, what makes us want to interact with them? when do we empathise more with a profile on social media?.
The final stage is to answer those questions with research. One of the best findings was to discover Bright Minded (Cyrus, 2020), an Instagram show created by the singer Miley Cyrus.
This helped me to realize how achievable was to have Instagram as our stage, and formats we could use (video, live streams, stories). Thanks to her show, I discovered a feature on Instagram where you can organise the videos already uploaded into different groups, that is how I was able to organise the videos (video calls) by days thus being easier follow and understand.
Bibliography
Cyrus, M., 2020. Miley Cyrus On Instagram. [online] Instagram. Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/tv/B_ITpjJJU-Y/?igshid=9ops4r9ns065> [Accessed 30 April 2020].
Weaver, L., 2020. PBR | WEEK 2 | LOIS WEAVER + RESEARCH BASED PRACTICE. [online] Vimeo. Available at: <https://vimeo.com/74500477> [Accessed 11 April 2020].