“That was trippy.”
Beyond that, I struggled to put into a quick text what exactly I had just experienced inside the Materfamilias Bathhouse, the setting of Bricolage’s latest immersive piece, Immersive Encounters: The Ascendants. It’s challenging to justify driving two hours each direction to see a show that’s shorter than an episode of almost any given tv show.
Having had some time to reflect, I maintain that my original assessment was true, but that lucid dreaming, as one reviewer suggested, is probably a more appropriate term to describe the sensation.
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Ascendants is one of the small-scale word-of-mouth productions Pittsburgh-based Bricolage produced as a “laboratory for both creators and patrons to explore a specific concept or aesthetic,” not intended to be a comprehensive piece. The production company, also behind STRATA and Ojo, has been actively producing immersive pieces since 2012. They’ve become well versed in the potential of the medium and are definitely worth keeping an eye on, if this brief experience is anything to go by. The twenty-five minute long encounters were even offered mid-day during the workweek, easily visited on a lunch break as the two other audience members appeared to be doing when I arrived.
After ringing a discreet doorbell at the appointed time and location, two attendants (Michael Brewer and Andrea Kozai) ushered us silently into a mosaic-tiled room with the unmistakable aroma and serene ambience of a spa. Within a few minutes of being checked in and separated from the other guests, the sensory deprivation and the narrative began.
Without giving away their unique approach, the narrative unfolds through an exceptionally progressive sound design, which in turn acts as the most overt method of immersion. Simply having one of the most fascinating audio designs I’ve ever encountered was by far worth the two hour drive. The soundscape by District 5 (Pickett, Evans, Gotwald) provided the core thread of the narrative, a brief and arcing reflection on mortality which oscillates beautifully between the particular and universal. However, it was the suggestive lights, subtle tactile effects, and perfectly timed rhythm of the performers that completed the submersion into the dream-like world.
The audience itself is relatively passive, gently being guided or seated by a performer throughout the experience without ever making any decisions. However, the effectiveness of this method of immersion cannot be understated. If sensory deprivation is a tool, co-creators Carpenter, Dixon, Turich, and Cody have its use down to an art form. Without the agency to explore through traditional means, the audience’s attention is left completely to the will of the directors, the mental spotlight swiveling to focus wherever there is sensory input. There’s no room to look away. As a result, every sensation is deliberate and even subtleties draw complete focus. In less capable hands, this could become overwhelming or disconcerting, but Bricolage manages the entire experience well. The end result is utterly dreamlike meditation on mortality that resolves itself within a lunch hour.
Immersive Encounters: The Ascendants Co-creator/Director Jeffrey Carpenter, Tami Dixon, Sam Turich; Co-creator/Lead Writer Gab Cody; Stage Manager Brandon Martin; Produced in Pittsburgh by Bricolage Production Company Ran May 1–14th. Follow Bricolage on twitter at @bricolagepgh
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