The Female Role Model Project at 3 Legged Dog
Dates: (11/7/2018 - 12/2/2018 )
3 Legged Dog |
The Female Role Model Project
New York,NY 10006
Phone: 212 645 0374
Tickets: $20 - $25
SUBMIT UPDATES
A new interactive theatrical experience incorporating live neuroscientific monitoring and recording that explores both the deep embedding and malleability of female identity will have its world premiere in New York beginning November 7. Produced by Transforma Theatre in its debut production, “The Female Role Model Project” begins a four-week Off-Broadway engagement at 3-Legged Dog, 80 Greenwich Street, on Wednesday November 7 at 8pm. Tickets are now on sale at www.3ldnyc.org for the production that opens officially on Sunday November 11 at 5pm, and runs through Sunday December 2 at 5pm.
Created by the NYC-based Slovenian producer-performer Tjasa Fermé, and co-developed and directed by the NYC-based Romanian immersive theatre director Ana Margineanu, “The Female Role Model Project” features four diverse female-identified performers of various ethnicities, ages and sexual identities, who portray a series of well-known, iconic women. Together, these four actresses are one of four components of a unique ensemble modality that is equal parts performer, scientist, technician and audience member.
While electrical activity of their brains is monitored, the show’s actresses portray different female role models, including Marilyn Monroe, Michelle Obama, Melania Trump, Mulan and Kim Kardashian. To avoid fixed performances, the actresses engage audience members (some of whom are outfitted with the same biofeedback equipment) in a series of playback games. In real time the brain-computer interface transmits 3D projections and music streams of the resulting neural function, and, led by a real-life neuroscientist, we are asked to ponder our own thoughts and experiences in relation to those of the actresses, and select audience members. EEG (electroencephalogram) headsets are provided by tech sponsors Emotiv and Brainbit.
The design and content team includes Brooklyn College cognitive neuroscientist and psychology professor Dr. Natalie Kacinik -- who provides science text, and insights about the live neural activity that is observed; esteemed video designer John Jannone, the founder and former director of Brooklyn College’s MFA program in Performance and Interactive Media Arts -- who is responsible for the media design, and the composer and music producer Justin Mathews -- who creates a live adaptive score (that is different every night) using his own program that converts brain waves into sound. Participating on stage are several tech-support specialists led by neuroscience researcher Hasibe Melda Kahraman, who conveys the real-time scientific interpretations. The ensemble’s performers include Fermé, Meggan Dodd, Penny Middleton, and Yiqing Zhao. (NB: Mathews’s audio program has been carefully vetted by the scientists on the team to accurately identify precise brain waves, resulting in a score that is as intuitive as it is tonally measurable.)
In a space that intersperses interactive storytelling, game-playing and technologically assisted comprehension and insight, “The Female Role Model Project” aims to test our deeply held, and in many ways genetically imprinted assumptions about femininity -- in things, in our bodies and in ourselves.
“Our show explores each performer’s own experiences of being a female in the world,” Fermé, the project’s conceiver, observes. “But we also want to know what we and others believe is feminine, see as feminine and need to be feminine. The piece’s framework tests the notions of traditional female role models with the potential for creating new ones to better serve us in the current world.”
“In a time of great sociopolitical change and heightened awareness about forces both genetic and social that assign gender and affix them in our consciousness,” Fermé continues, “we believe that artificial intelligence, epigenetics, and pioneering storytelling can help us discover new representations of female role models.”
According to Kacinik, the resident neuroscientist, “we’re living in sociopolitical times with greater awareness and discussion about gender, particularly how women are represented, treated, and compensated in the workplace and society as a whole. Recent decades have also resulted in unprecedented advances in technology and knowledge about how the human mind and brain functions. So it’s a great time to merge this together to explore the cognitive and neural bases of how we conceptualize women with respect to ourselves, others, and possibly transform these representations. By making people more consciously aware of how they perceive, think, and talk about women, men, and issues involving gender, we aim to generate new insights, free of bias, potentially leading to real neurobiological, behavioral, and social change.”
“The Female Role Model Project” has been in development since 2017. A workshop was performed at the first annual LGBTQ-positive festival Fearless 2017 in New York. Subsequent workshops, in which performers developed component texts using their own responses to the female role models, were hosted by TheaterLab NYC this year. As it builds a network of scientists studying the nature of human communication and consciousness to take part in this and other projects, Transforma has recently tapped the renowned neuroscientist and NY Times best-selling author David Eagleman (PBS’s The Brain with David Eagleman) to serve as a Transforma scientific adviser.
Kacinik is a cognitive neuroscientist and Associate Professor of Psychology at CUNY’s Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center. Margineanu is a co-artistic director of the site-specific innovator PopUp Theatrics, of which Fermé is a member.
Transforma Theatre, Inc. creates interactive theatre experiences at the convergence of science, consciousness and ritual. Formed by Tjasa Fermé, Natalie Kacinik and New York-based attorney Jacob Sebag, the company aims to be a close community of scientists and artists dedicated to exploring the nature of consciousness through the direct co-mingling of science and shamanic rituals as experienced through multi-media performance. This is the company’s “maiden” production.
“THE FEMALE ROLE MODEL PROJECT” MERGES TECHNOLOGY AND RITUAL IN NEW WAYS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FEMALE IDENTITY
DEBUT PRODUCTION BY TRANSFORMA THEATRE RUNS AT 3-LEGGED DOG NOV 7 TO DEC “THE FEMALE ROLE MODEL PROJECT” MERGES TECHNOLOGY AND RITUAL IN NEW WAYS
The Female Role Model Project” -- an interactive multimedia theatre piece exploring the neuro-epigenetic basis and transformative potential of female identity in a radically changing world -- plays a total of 19 performances at 3LD Art & Technology, 80 Greenwich Street, from Wednesday November 7 to Sunday December 2. Performances are Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 5pm, with an added performance on Wed Nov 7, and no performance on Thur Nov 22. Tickets, which are $25, can be purchased at www.3ldnyc.org
Running time: 90 minutes
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