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Nov. 11th, 2018 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Last night, a friend had free tickets to an off-off Broadway play, and invited me to go with her to see it.
The Female Role Model Project
Put on at the 3 Legged Dog Theater in lower Manhattan, or around Wall Street (near Trinity Church and the 9/11 Memorial), this was an experimental theaterical experience that utilized technology, neuroscience, sociological/psychological perspectives, and improvisational theater.
The audience sits on bleachers that are above the stage. The stage is in front and to the side of the audience and has no real set. Just four white walls, a while floor, a row of tables to one side, where various people sit behind lap top computers, and electronic gadgetry. Four actresses enter, of varying sizes, shapes and ethnicity. One is tall, large and African-American (in her lat 20s), one is about 5'6 and Asian, thin, and in her late twenties early thirties, another medium height, blond, blue-eyed, from Croatia, and in her early thirties, and finally one who is 64, white haired, small, and white - petite.
The women tell us who their female role models were, everything from Marilyn Monroe to Pippi Long Stocking to Peter Pan. They wear brain moderators as they do so, with their brain activity shown on the two white walls behind them. The brain waves are lines and dots and well waves in colors of blue and green and red and white and orange. Then they ask for volunteers who will go down to the stage at a later point in the proceedings to wear one of the brain monitors as they tell a story about their mother, and listen to another person's story about their own. There's two slots. Next they request the entire audience to come down to the stage and play a game regarding the gender identification of words. Are certain words more feminine or masculain...and how so. Stand on the right side of the room if they are more feminine, and left side if more masculain. Then the actors try to push for one side or the other. The words are determined for the most part by the audience -- the interactive nature of the play strongly dictates where it will lead. The words chosen are flower, table, success, money, confusion, contacts, lenses, hammer, eyeglasses, branch, and snow. Most of the words uttered were determine to be masulain by the majority of the group.
Flower, snow, success, confusion and contacts were feminine.
Table, branch, money, eyeglasses, lenses, and hammer were male.
These were lit up on the wall behind us. We discussed the words and why we put them there. And we were shown how different cultures show them differently. One word in German may be masculine, while the same word in Spanish is considered feminine.
After this, the actresses played hopscotch while telling us stories about their childhood - focusing on their relationship with their mothers and with being female. Then we progressed to teenage years.
In between we'd have one of the actresses share a story about her mother with one of the volunteers from the audience who would do the same -- while their brains were monitored. Afterwards, a neuroscientist researcher would explain the brain waves we saw on the wall behind them.
The play then switched over teen age years...and we once again we got the role models, and the actresses changed to evening dresses. They did a beauty pagent with another audience volunteer (an old guy in a tweed jacket who found medium size breasts, juicy thighs, short, fat, dark skinned women to be the most beautiful. The actresses wondered about other things like smiles, eyes, talent, why were only these things judged?). And finally an Oprah talk show contest, where three social media female icons of the modern age would be assessed on their opinions about female things. Such as aging, sexuality, and motherhood. The three women chosen were Melania Trump, Kim Kardashian, and Bing Bing Xian (a Chinese icon who I've never heard of). Oprah asked them questions as did people from the audience. Then the audience was supposed to vote on which statement they agreed with the most.
Sometimes the actresses would break character and provide their own contradictory opinion -- because they REALLY did not agree with the icon they were portraying.
Interspersed within all of this was real stories from each actress about their lives.
The piece depends a bit too much on audience participation and audiences often don't like interactive theater. The breakage of the fourth wall doesn't work for a lot of people. Also, it lends a chaotic aspect to the work or an unpredictable one. You don't know whose in the audience. On top of that, the other audience members have to deal with people pulling the show in a direction that they may not have signed on for. Improvisational audience participation pieces often have that difficulty.
I thought it worked best when it was either about the actresses or involved the entire audience.
Although the two volunteers who shared their experiences with their mothers were more interesting than the actresses were. The neuroscience was impossible to understand, not overly articulate, and rather dry. And it fell a bit into cliche and stereotypes by the second act, retreading old ground.
(The woman who gave up the child for adoption, thinking nothing of it and that the child wouldn't emulate her at all...only to meet the adult version years later and pick up some habits and decisions that were similar to her own relatives and family. Although -- I'd state the habits/choices she picks up on are too general. The daughter she gave up for adoption was a gymnast like her youngest daughter, pursued filmmaking like her oldest daughter, and got a degree in psychology like her mother -- except there are a lot of people who do that. Also she swung her backpack across her right should like she did. Again, a lot of people do that.) The icons were interesting, but stereotyped. Melania Trump was of course against open sexuality, and about being a virgin first, Kim Kardashian was all about exploiting things for the greatest financial gain (regardless of what it might be), and Bing Bing Xing was about whatever furthered her career and her ego. It was as if the writers chose the icons for the negative messages they represented.
They had a lot to say, but it got a bit muddled due to the scattered nature of the work. It needed tweaking and editing. So sense of structure, I think.
My friend wanted to see it again. I'd gotten a bit bored towards the end, so no. But, I did like aspects of it -- I thought the idea behind it was rather interesting, as was how they executed it.
2. Annoying upstairs neighbors keep hammering together something above me. They've finally stopped, or so I hope. Occasionally, I miss living in a house -- where you don't have these problems.
The Female Role Model Project
Put on at the 3 Legged Dog Theater in lower Manhattan, or around Wall Street (near Trinity Church and the 9/11 Memorial), this was an experimental theaterical experience that utilized technology, neuroscience, sociological/psychological perspectives, and improvisational theater.
The Female Role Model Project, an interactive theatrical experience incorporating live neuroscientific recordings, is coming to the New York City’s premier hub for arts and technology- 3-Legged Dog (3LD) for a four week engagement November 7th through December 3rd, 2018.
Thematically the piece explores representations of female role models and their evolution in a time of great sociopolitical change and the possibility of transforming our brains. It combines theatrical performance and interactive games with live recordings of neural activity from both actors and audience members using Emotiv EEG headsets.
The Female Role Model Project (TFRMP) explores each performer’s own experiences of being a female in the world. The piece's framework identifies and tests the notions of traditional female role models, with the potential of creating new ones to better serve us in the current world of great sociopolitical shifts. The project's artists perform as different role models (e.g., Mulan, Marilyn Monroe, Michelle Obama, Melania Trump, Kim Kardashian) while the electrical activity of their brain is monitored with portable EEG headsets (provided by tech sponsor Emotiv). The performers' neural functioning is projected for everyone in the theatre to see live and in real time. Composer and music producer Justin Mathews (artist on Selena Gomez’s new album) also created a program that converts the live brain waves of performers’ into an intricate sound design. Audience members and collaborators witness how such role models are represented and processed, according to what they trigger and how they potentially affect us throughout our lives.
Lead by a cognitive neuroscientist and psychology professor at CUNY’s Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, Dr. Natalie Kacinik, they’re bringing the results of their exploration to New York audiences for a 90 minute interactive theatrical experience. They have been collaborating with experts in a variety of fields, including renowned neuroscientist and New York Times best selling author David Eagleman and other scientists studying the nature of human communication and consciousness.
The audience sits on bleachers that are above the stage. The stage is in front and to the side of the audience and has no real set. Just four white walls, a while floor, a row of tables to one side, where various people sit behind lap top computers, and electronic gadgetry. Four actresses enter, of varying sizes, shapes and ethnicity. One is tall, large and African-American (in her lat 20s), one is about 5'6 and Asian, thin, and in her late twenties early thirties, another medium height, blond, blue-eyed, from Croatia, and in her early thirties, and finally one who is 64, white haired, small, and white - petite.
The women tell us who their female role models were, everything from Marilyn Monroe to Pippi Long Stocking to Peter Pan. They wear brain moderators as they do so, with their brain activity shown on the two white walls behind them. The brain waves are lines and dots and well waves in colors of blue and green and red and white and orange. Then they ask for volunteers who will go down to the stage at a later point in the proceedings to wear one of the brain monitors as they tell a story about their mother, and listen to another person's story about their own. There's two slots. Next they request the entire audience to come down to the stage and play a game regarding the gender identification of words. Are certain words more feminine or masculain...and how so. Stand on the right side of the room if they are more feminine, and left side if more masculain. Then the actors try to push for one side or the other. The words are determined for the most part by the audience -- the interactive nature of the play strongly dictates where it will lead. The words chosen are flower, table, success, money, confusion, contacts, lenses, hammer, eyeglasses, branch, and snow. Most of the words uttered were determine to be masulain by the majority of the group.
Flower, snow, success, confusion and contacts were feminine.
Table, branch, money, eyeglasses, lenses, and hammer were male.
These were lit up on the wall behind us. We discussed the words and why we put them there. And we were shown how different cultures show them differently. One word in German may be masculine, while the same word in Spanish is considered feminine.
After this, the actresses played hopscotch while telling us stories about their childhood - focusing on their relationship with their mothers and with being female. Then we progressed to teenage years.
In between we'd have one of the actresses share a story about her mother with one of the volunteers from the audience who would do the same -- while their brains were monitored. Afterwards, a neuroscientist researcher would explain the brain waves we saw on the wall behind them.
The play then switched over teen age years...and we once again we got the role models, and the actresses changed to evening dresses. They did a beauty pagent with another audience volunteer (an old guy in a tweed jacket who found medium size breasts, juicy thighs, short, fat, dark skinned women to be the most beautiful. The actresses wondered about other things like smiles, eyes, talent, why were only these things judged?). And finally an Oprah talk show contest, where three social media female icons of the modern age would be assessed on their opinions about female things. Such as aging, sexuality, and motherhood. The three women chosen were Melania Trump, Kim Kardashian, and Bing Bing Xian (a Chinese icon who I've never heard of). Oprah asked them questions as did people from the audience. Then the audience was supposed to vote on which statement they agreed with the most.
Sometimes the actresses would break character and provide their own contradictory opinion -- because they REALLY did not agree with the icon they were portraying.
Interspersed within all of this was real stories from each actress about their lives.
The piece depends a bit too much on audience participation and audiences often don't like interactive theater. The breakage of the fourth wall doesn't work for a lot of people. Also, it lends a chaotic aspect to the work or an unpredictable one. You don't know whose in the audience. On top of that, the other audience members have to deal with people pulling the show in a direction that they may not have signed on for. Improvisational audience participation pieces often have that difficulty.
I thought it worked best when it was either about the actresses or involved the entire audience.
Although the two volunteers who shared their experiences with their mothers were more interesting than the actresses were. The neuroscience was impossible to understand, not overly articulate, and rather dry. And it fell a bit into cliche and stereotypes by the second act, retreading old ground.
(The woman who gave up the child for adoption, thinking nothing of it and that the child wouldn't emulate her at all...only to meet the adult version years later and pick up some habits and decisions that were similar to her own relatives and family. Although -- I'd state the habits/choices she picks up on are too general. The daughter she gave up for adoption was a gymnast like her youngest daughter, pursued filmmaking like her oldest daughter, and got a degree in psychology like her mother -- except there are a lot of people who do that. Also she swung her backpack across her right should like she did. Again, a lot of people do that.) The icons were interesting, but stereotyped. Melania Trump was of course against open sexuality, and about being a virgin first, Kim Kardashian was all about exploiting things for the greatest financial gain (regardless of what it might be), and Bing Bing Xing was about whatever furthered her career and her ego. It was as if the writers chose the icons for the negative messages they represented.
They had a lot to say, but it got a bit muddled due to the scattered nature of the work. It needed tweaking and editing. So sense of structure, I think.
My friend wanted to see it again. I'd gotten a bit bored towards the end, so no. But, I did like aspects of it -- I thought the idea behind it was rather interesting, as was how they executed it.
2. Annoying upstairs neighbors keep hammering together something above me. They've finally stopped, or so I hope. Occasionally, I miss living in a house -- where you don't have these problems.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-11 11:55 pm (UTC)That must be confusing. Though now that I think of it I'm not sure if the genders are consistent among romance languages -- I don't remember my French and Italian well enough to say so and Portuguese and Spanish are very similar.
Sounds like a fascinating idea for a show but I suspect I would feel much the same way that you did about both the audience participation and the conclusions drawn.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-12 02:23 am (UTC)Also there were certain words that several audience members including myself didn't see as either feminine or masculain in the exercise. (Success and Confusion are sort of non-gender specific.)
And there's no real consistency or pattern to be found. Which the actors and researchers realized -- that a pattern didn't exist. There's really nothing to be said about a table being masculain -- and there was a lot of disagreement over it.
I felt it was too easy for the writers/performers to fall into generalizations and stereotypes. The piece -- in how it was put together was surprising, but the content wasn't. And I got a bit bored after awhile. I've seen the same thing done better elsewhere with Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues and Emotional Creatures.