しん・稽古
“NewHeart Rehearsal” is created using the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset produced by Meta, that combines theatre and performance based on the fundamental methodologies of an ‘absent puppet’.
After developing a VR game based on the text of “Herzstück”, a play written by the German playwright Heiner Müller, the rules of the game were defined referring to the method of controlling puppets in ningyo-joruri (puppet theatre), and then a staged performance was created as a result of a series of live rehearsals and an aggregation of all of the elements mentioned above. By combining theatre and VR technology, the work aims to bring the repressed back into the realm of expression.
Two elements were extracted from “Herzstück”: how the expression of emotions in modern society is in a predicament of difficulties in communication, and the emotionless dialogues that exist between repressed people. One of the important aspects of puppetry is that it allows the kairai (marionette) called ‘human’ to express emotions that are difficult for us to express. What the kairai (marionette) tries to repress becomes a ghost. I read these repressed desires as ‘Marx's ghosts’ (Jacques Derrida)—advances in the VR game differ depending on whether the players can read the lines out loud correctly. If they can read the lines correctly, they can move on. If not, the player has to repeat the lines until it is correctly said.
The concept of the ‘absent puppet’ refers to Jacques Derrida's ‘deconstruction’, in which hierarchical dichotomies are broken down from within the language. The two pioneers in modern theatre, Edward Gordon and Alfred Jarry, each introduced a common illusion at the beginning of the twentieth century. The use of puppets, or Über-Marionette instead of performers is the core idea of this illusion. By using a theatrical technique that blurs the boundaries between the puppet and the actor in a traditional performance, I have changed the way in which the puppet and the actor themselves stand in a grey area. By doing so, a visually perceptible ghost is created. In order to create this ghost, inspiration was drawn from the concept of chūin (the state of intermediate existence between one's death and rebirth), which was often used by the cultural anthropologist Victor Turner in his research in performances. Utilising the characteristics of ningyo-joruri (puppet theatre), one of Japan's three great traditional performing arts, in the dramatic manner of Zeami's (greatest playwright and theorist of the Japanese Noh theatre) 'Mugen Noh' (a play made up of a dream or illusion seen by the waki (supporting actor)), the 'absent puppet' is moved.
・2022
・Based on “Herzstück” by Heiner Müller
・Concept,Direction,Game engineering,Sound,Video,CG：swimming
・Performers / swimming / Rei sinkevich
