Immersing oneself in the theater
Print Edition
Put on a veil, part with friends, walk into a quaint tavern, and embark on a three-hour hair-raising adventure in a 1910s Chinese town haunted by demons.
This was a recent immersive theater production 鈥淢ythic Stories of Fanling Township鈥 staged in Shenyang, capital of northeast China鈥檚 Liaoning Province.
Featuring an area of more than 3,000 square meters and more than 30 well-designed rooms, the performance invites the audience to enjoy a number of spectacles at close range.
These include a demon hunter fighting evil spirits in a bamboo forest and a priest exchanging souls with the demon in a laboratory.
More importantly, the audience can walk around freely, follow and even interact with any of the nearly 20 performers during the show, and then piece together their own plotline.
鈥淚t feels amazing when everything is unknown,鈥 said Ge Xinxin, a local theatergoer.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know who the characters are, which character I should follow or how their stories will unfold.鈥
Producer Zhang Chunyang said immersive theater has revolutionized the way the audience watches performances.
鈥淚mmersive theater allows the audience to enter the story from different perspectives and thus fully enjoy the show,鈥 Zhang said.
As experimental art, immersive theater has gained popularity in recent years among an increasingly sophisticated audience in Chinese cities.
In Shanghai a total of 11 immersive or interactive theater productions were staged last year, including the award-winning 鈥淪leep No More,鈥 a coproduction between Britain鈥檚 Punchdrunk International and China鈥檚 SMG Live.
Still running in the McKinnon Hotel in downtown Shanghai, the immersive theater event has attracted more than 200,000 spectators, who yearn to participate in art rather than view it from afar.
Wang Jinshan, deputy dean of the college of humanities at Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, said the growing popularity of immersive theater in China shows that Chinese audiences鈥 taste for theater arts has become more sophisticated and individualized in recent years.
鈥淚mmersive theater provides a fresh experience for the audience,鈥 Wang said.
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