If You Would Play Again
Performance dates:
Dec 2021 / If You Would Play Again (First Round) / Berliner Ringtheater / Germany
(remote work-in-progress) Aug 2021 / Berliner Ringtheater / Germany
Imagine you're lost in someone's consciousness: a place where memories and dreams are intertwined, and boundaries between the physical and the virtual worlds are blurred.
Part immersive installation, part interactive performance, IF YOU WOULD PLAY AGAIN invites the audience to play a game without win or loss, and to promenade in a labyrinth of memory.
By entering a multimedia installation, a group of audience is absorbed into the dream, the consciousness and the imagination of the performer. At the same time, the performer remains as a disembodied figure behind the screen, appearing in a series of surrealist and dreamlike cinematographic sequences.
What kind of new connections can be built between an audience and a performer who is physically absent? How does it feel when a virtual space permeate into our physical space? What would happen when the consciousness of the other leaks into our body?
The game-like structure aims to challenge the linear theatrical narrative convention, and plays with the dynamics between group and individual, liveness and absence, and freedom and responsibility. By introducing game design principles, the artist Mengting Zhuo continues to explore the role of agency in participatory theatre. In a choose-your-own-adventure game with multiple ending, how does a group make decision? Can every individual in a group have a voice and choose their direction?
IF YOU WOULD PLAY AGAIN is an international cooperation between Berliner Ringtheater and London-based Chinese performance maker Mengting Zhuo.
Team (Winter 2021 in Berlin)
with: Mengting Zhuo and Cristina Negucioiu (voice)
concept and director: Mengting Zhuo
text: Mengting Zhuo & ensemble
dramaturgy: Dandan Liu
scenography: Prapatsorn Sukkaset
assistant director: Sunan Gu
video design, live camera: Mengting Zhuo
video and sound technician: Juha Hauska
light technician: Timo von der Horst
Co-produced by Berliner Ringtheater
Performance dates:
Dec 2021 / If You Would Play Again (First Round) / Berliner Ringtheater / Germany
(remote work-in-progress) Aug 2021 / Berliner Ringtheater / Germany
Imagine you're lost in someone's consciousness: a place where memories and dreams are intertwined, and boundaries between the physical and the virtual worlds are blurred.
Part immersive installation, part interactive performance, IF YOU WOULD PLAY AGAIN invites the audience to play a game without win or loss, and to promenade in a labyrinth of memory.
By entering a multimedia installation, a group of audience is absorbed into the dream, the consciousness and the imagination of the performer. At the same time, the performer remains as a disembodied figure behind the screen, appearing in a series of surrealist and dreamlike cinematographic sequences.
What kind of new connections can be built between an audience and a performer who is physically absent? How does it feel when a virtual space permeate into our physical space? What would happen when the consciousness of the other leaks into our body?
The game-like structure aims to challenge the linear theatrical narrative convention, and plays with the dynamics between group and individual, liveness and absence, and freedom and responsibility. By introducing game design principles, the artist Mengting Zhuo continues to explore the role of agency in participatory theatre. In a choose-your-own-adventure game with multiple ending, how does a group make decision? Can every individual in a group have a voice and choose their direction?
IF YOU WOULD PLAY AGAIN is an international cooperation between Berliner Ringtheater and London-based Chinese performance maker Mengting Zhuo.
Team (Winter 2021 in Berlin)
with: Mengting Zhuo and Cristina Negucioiu (voice)
concept and director: Mengting Zhuo
text: Mengting Zhuo & ensemble
dramaturgy: Dandan Liu
scenography: Prapatsorn Sukkaset
assistant director: Sunan Gu
video design, live camera: Mengting Zhuo
video and sound technician: Juha Hauska
light technician: Timo von der Horst
Co-produced by Berliner Ringtheater