Can New Technologies Bring Young People Closer To The Performing Arts World? Virtual or augmented reality, video games, will these tools help professionals rejuvenate their audience? Some have had an experience like Théâtre Monfort in Paris.
Live performances attempt multiple experiences to introduce themselves to a wider audience, build new means of communication, or present new creative experiences that blend reality and the virtual. The creators are already accustomed to mixing virtual reality or augmented reality. But these new technologies can also be useful in mediation policies.
At the Monfort Theater, Chloé Bourret, Director of Public Relations, took the opportunity to work with engineering students from Mines Paris, to host a video game, an escape game and a 3D visit for the show’s designers.
“Flashman Saves the World”
The Ecole des Mines de Paris is one of the most prestigious engineering schools in France and has a MOVIE (Virtual Worlds, Technology and Society Issues) teaching unit. For Théâtre Monfort, it was about Finding new ways to communicate with the new generation, Young people who do not necessarily go to the theater. So the video game “Flashman save the world” for the theater team and creators of the hybrid show “George saves the world” was a mediation tool.
The game limit is simple: Rebel attack on the town of Choposity. Flashman can save the population from their invasion by eliminating them. Choupocity came from the imagination of the show’s authors Georges Will Le Monde, Jeanne Frenkel and Cosme Castro.
The specific model came from a 3D printer and the elements were laser cut. Engineering students made a 3D version of this model, to build the game environment. It happens to video game users, like the protagonist of the show. He finds himself flat on the skin of Flashman, the superhero.
The show moves and wherever it goes, the video game remains viewable, as it can be downloaded to a smartphone or can be used on a PC.
Today’s Tools
Another suggestion for the general public, the escape game that you can try behind a VR headset, outside the moments of the shows, allows you, by solving a puzzle (how to leave the stage if you are accidentally locked up), discover the history of the place, go behind the scenes and learn more about the life of the actress and theater director and director Sylvia Montfort, who died in 1991. Palais Garnier launched this formula in 2018 Already successfully.
For professionals, a three-dimensional visit to the picturesque space and the “library” of potential collections will be useful. Like No 3D simulation From the new interior décor applied to the world of staging, kits and accessories. “These are very cool new tools”Chloe Bure explains. “for example, aWith a virtual reality headset, show designers can measure the impact of certain groups just by placing them (virtually) in the stage space.”
At the moment, these proposals remain experimental, but little by little they contribute to the transformation of the performing arts. Theaters lag behind museums and have fewer resources. Mines Paris, under its program dedicated to virtual reality in the performing arts, also works with the National Opera in Paris and the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris (CNSMDP).
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