Tele-Immersive Improv: Effects of Immersive Visualisations on Rehearsing and Performing Theatre Online

Abstract

Performers acutely need but lack tools to remotely rehearse and create live theatre, particularly due to global restrictions on social interactions during the Covid-19 pandemic. No studies, however, have heretofore examined how remote video-collaboration affects performance. This paper presents the findings of a field study with 16 domain experts over six weeks investigating how tele-immersion affects the rehearsal and performance of improvisational theatre. To conduct the study, an original media server was developed for co-locating remote performers into shared virtual 3D environments which were accessed through popular video conferencing software. The results of this qualitative study indicate that tele-immersive environments uniquely provide performers with a strong sense of co- presence, feelings of physical connection, and an increased ability to enter the social-flow states required for improvisational theatre. Based on our observations, we put forward design recommendations for video collaboration tools tailored to the unique demands of live performance.

Authors
Boyd Branch
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom
Christos Efstratiou
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom
Piotr Mirowski
HumanMachine, London, United Kingdom
Kory W. Mathewson
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Paul Allain
University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom
DOI

10.1145/3411764.3445310

Paper URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445310

Video

Conference: CHI 2021

The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2021.acm.org/)

Session: Combining Digital and Analogue Presence in Online Work

[A] Paper Room 08, 2021-05-11 17:00:00~2021-05-11 19:00:00 / [B] Paper Room 08, 2021-05-12 01:00:00~2021-05-12 03:00:00 / [C] Paper Room 08, 2021-05-12 09:00:00~2021-05-12 11:00:00
Paper Room 08
12 items in this session
2021-05-11 08:00:00
2021-05-11 10:00:00
Japanese summary
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