The Experience of Copenhagen
Welcome. You are about to be involved in some way in an experience that uses The Copenhagen Interpretation.
You walk into a non-theatre space. It’s usually a building with multiple floors, and we use all the available space: rooms, corridors, stairs, toilets, gardens, cupboards.
You begin in a welcoming area. Think of it like coming into someone's house through the back door, into the kitchen. And you know where the spare key is hidden outside.
It's okay that you might not know where anything is, though. And it's also okay that you might not know what the plan is, although beforehand, info has been provided if you want it.
You might already know about:
Played by you / played by actor / drawn by artist / recorded in your words / simply imagined for fun. If you want your character to be active in the world, they are given to the Storytellers who weave them into the narrative web so they can actually carry and affect elements of story. Bear Witness
Stick to the safe path that runs through all the spaces. Just watch. Don’t get involved except to bear witness. Maybe capture some of what you witness through journaling. Journaling
Capture and respond to any part of the experience in any way. Write and draw on the brown paper provided on the walls. Purchase posh journals that are bespoke for the experience or bring/make your own. Video. Photograph. Draw. Talk to one of our roaming artists and they will write / draw / illustrate your thoughts for you. Add to the displayed archive / the secret archive / share with friends / leave notes for others / keep in your pocket. More ways to get involved include: Build
You can help to fabricate the world within the space, which is built and taken down again during the process, by the audients and professional creative practitioners. This includes playing with materials, light, sound. Be Accompanied
An experienced audient could accompany you, to guide you and/or to deepen your experience by helping you reflect on the process as you go, and encouraging you to capture your experience in some way through journaling. Accompany
Once you have experience as an audient, you could accompany someone else. Expertise
Contribute and/or respond to an aspect of the whole in which you have some expertise, eg: a cobbler could talk about fashioning a glass slipper. Add your findings / responses to the archive and/or to your own work.
- the big overall story and story world
eg: a medieval retelling of Cinderella… - how it basically works
we build the world together, wander through the story, capture our responses to it, then talk about it while we take it down… - the people involved
professional actors and artists, experienced and inexperienced audients…
Choices
You are offered a few ways to be involved. Choices made now can be changed at any point during the experience, and the price of admission to the world allows you to come back again and make other choices on another day. Navigation: you have a map of the building, though we all start in an empty space with some resources for shaping that space into places in the story/world we're going to collectively build and populate. When areas within the building stop being the building, and start being places in the story/world that can be explored, where story is beginning to take place, there are announcements. Or rather, there are Whispers that run around the community, rumours of the woods being awake, of the thorns growing high, or the lettuce in the garden next door being ripe and ready for picking.Mobility
The principles of how audients and characters navigate the experience are based on Open Space Technology:- wherever you find yourself is the right place
- whenever you arrive there is the right time
- however long you stay there is the right time
- whatever happens is the only thing that could have
- whoever else is there are the right people
FOMO
If you can’t bear the Fear Of Missing Out, you could:- be given all the info up front
- have a walkie talkie to eavesdrop on live reports of what is happening where
- let someone accompany you to points of action
- return another time with more experience
Involvement
Choices you’re offered for getting involved include: Create a character in this worldPlayed by you / played by actor / drawn by artist / recorded in your words / simply imagined for fun. If you want your character to be active in the world, they are given to the Storytellers who weave them into the narrative web so they can actually carry and affect elements of story. Bear Witness
Stick to the safe path that runs through all the spaces. Just watch. Don’t get involved except to bear witness. Maybe capture some of what you witness through journaling. Journaling
Capture and respond to any part of the experience in any way. Write and draw on the brown paper provided on the walls. Purchase posh journals that are bespoke for the experience or bring/make your own. Video. Photograph. Draw. Talk to one of our roaming artists and they will write / draw / illustrate your thoughts for you. Add to the displayed archive / the secret archive / share with friends / leave notes for others / keep in your pocket. More ways to get involved include: Build
You can help to fabricate the world within the space, which is built and taken down again during the process, by the audients and professional creative practitioners. This includes playing with materials, light, sound. Be Accompanied
An experienced audient could accompany you, to guide you and/or to deepen your experience by helping you reflect on the process as you go, and encouraging you to capture your experience in some way through journaling. Accompany
Once you have experience as an audient, you could accompany someone else. Expertise
Contribute and/or respond to an aspect of the whole in which you have some expertise, eg: a cobbler could talk about fashioning a glass slipper. Add your findings / responses to the archive and/or to your own work.