It’s 1995 and it’s 11-year-old Meera’s first sleepover with best friends Lily and Shaun. Cassette recordings from the radio and Sega Mega Drive distract them from theories about Ashleigh’s disappearance. Outside, on the Great Barrier Reef, police divers are on a search-and-rescue mission by torchlight.
At the crossroads of contemporary performance and cutting-edge technology, Frogman is curious directive’s coming-of-age thriller exploring the fragility of the childhood imagination with audiences experiencing a fictoinal 1995 murder rexamined in 360 degree virtual reality.
A multi-sensory event, presented at Brisbane Powerhouse’s Visy Theatre as part of Brisbane International Film Festival 2018 (BIFF), Frogman submerges the audience deep into the Great Barrier Reef in a sensory-immersive way, inviting audinces to explore the flashback moments via VR.
Frogman performer Georgina Strawson says she’s proud to be part of this collaboration with curious directive, as they strive to tell stories and engage audiences.
“curious directive’s relationship with science, technology and theatre communities alike has allowed us to create a carefully layered and emotionally charged science-led production,” Georgina said.
Fusing live theatre with 360-film and binaural sound, Frogman blurs the lines between reality and fiction, the physical and the virtual. Performed to an intimate audience of 60 people aided by a VR headset, Frogman changes the storytelling norm in a theatre environment. Brisbane Powerhouse Artisitc Director Kris Stewart says that the incorporation of technology is a beautiful fusion of media that will resonate with all ages.
“We really pride ourselves on the fact that Brisbane Powerhouse can be a meeting place for different kinds of creators who are focused on the future of storytelling,” Kris said.
“It’s exciting to be part of BIFF 2018 with a theatre and VR performance that takes the immediacy of photo performance and matches it with cutting-edge 360-degree video that opens up storytelling in a completely new way.”
At once a coming-of-age drama, thriller and pioneering integration of live performance and virtual reality, Frogman will sweep you up in its wake. Brisbane Powerhouse presents Frogman in partnership with BIFF 2018. The production was created by British Theatre company curious directive and is a co-production from curious directive, Hull UK City of Culture 2017, The Deep and The Old Market, in association with Brisbane Powerhouse.
Frogman
17 – 21 October 2018
Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
