NMC Campus Observer

First Round of Theater Workshop

CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine) : May 4, 2007 09:49am

I was one of the participants in yesterday’s first meeting for Dan Undertone’s (aka. Zellner) workshop on Theater in Second Life. Fortunately, as advertised, there was no experience required as my last on stage appearance (RL) was in the third grade.

We first met in one of the studio spaces in the Machinima building on NMC Campus:

where Dan did a little overview, and we practice aspects of movement (in a confined) space using an old but easy to remember game- Follow the Leader. It sounds silly, but it helps to think about your movement in SL by having to focus on the person in front as well as your own actions. We also did another variant of an exercise Dan says they do in the RL theater, where we push around a big magic floating ball, and then take turns being in the middle as an observer. In SL, there actually was a colorful ball that multiple avatars could try and control, whereas, the exercise in RL uses an imaginary one. That seems like ti would be more challenging.

Next, we went downstairs to the grand theater space:

where Dan demonstrated the ability to, with one click, re-arrange the seating and stage to one of 8 or 9 different varieties of set ups. We had another exercise in moving around the stage space, as well as one that involved passing objects to each other.

It was a quick hour and then some, but gives a real sense as to some aspects of movement and communication that can be uniquely explored here in Second Life.

Afterwards, Dan looked relaxed, but was actualy being interviewed by a local TV news station (RL variety)!

Story filed under: Teaching and Learning, What's Happening

See all stories by CDB Barkley (aka Alan Levine)