Sunshine warms New York City’s hidden immersive oasis, Governor’s Island. What once was a military fort off the southern coast of Manhattan, is now a national monument and park, with art installations throughout the Summer months. While the army may have left the island, the old houses and buildings remain, which have been host to several immersive shows over the past few years. All just a short ferry ride from the city proper.
This year Rebis Experiences have been given the opportunity to present their first work on the island, Those Before Us: Nolan Park. Taking place in a large open park square, this is a mix of dance performance and technology, allowing us to explore the memories of the island. Four time periods are available for us to explore during Those Before Us: Nolan Park, with each era providing a separate narrative and “track” to follow.
Designed for accessibility, each audience member uses their own internet connected device to discover these memories. Walking around the space, QR codes can be scanned to access each audio file for Those Before Us: Nolan Park. Additionally, AR audio sunglasses are available — I was granted the use of some impressive Bose Frames to use on my exploration, although this is not a requirement to enjoy the experience. The Bose Frames, which pose as much needed sunglasses, subtly project the audio from speakers hidden around the temples for the user to hear. It’s a neat trick, which after a few disorientating moments of checking which sounds are real or just “in my head,” I enjoyed using. (The technology in theory would also be able to read the QR codes automatically, but I was unable to use this feature for my performance.)
The first timeline, set in 1637, follows a young man writing to family members about the original settlement of Governors Island. He expresses shame and guilt as he realises how badly the white conquerors have treated the Indigenous residents of this small island. Over two centuries later, we then find ourselves following a young woman in 1878, the soon-to-be-wife of an army captain who works on the island. We hear her worries and concerns about marriage, about her standing in society, and of her abuser, one of the other captains on the island. Does she risk everything by exposing the truth, or does she remain silent, content to be an obedient army wife? Later, in 1917, we follow a young African American man, who has enlisted to serve his country during the war. However, despite his bravery and willingness to fight, he is still not seen as an equal in the barracks. This inequality of race is perhaps the real enemy and the driving force of this soldier’s tale. Finally, we find a young army brat who is preparing to leave his Governors Island home in 1964, as the family prepares to move to Manhattan. As he is packing however, his inner identity is being unpacked before us, as an unexpected sexual encounter challenges his understanding of who he is.
Each timeline/narrative in Those Before Us: Nolan Park has four stations and four separate audio tracks. It is up to the audience to decide which order they would like to listen to each story, or all four stories simultaneously. With each memory station linked to a different tree around the expansive area, you could expect to achieve your daily steps goal, for sure.
On top of the well-produced audio, four memory spirits are also present in the space. These four beautiful dancers, each dressed in plain white, wear a ribbon indicating which time period and which memory they belong to. As you wander around the park, you can catch a glimpse of them, and if you are speedy enough, catch up with them at one of the memory trees. Watching us load the audio as a cue, they would then portray the emotions and the memories the audience is hearing.
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The choreography is very much inspired by the audio. I found it to be both contemporary in nature and an excellent representation of the memories. This was a particularly impressive feat, as the performers had no audio cues to go off of, as all the audio is restricted to each audience member’s headset. Each dancer is expected to dance for the duration of each audio track, without actually hearing it in sync. I am impressed by the creativity of the performers as they move strongly and passionately following an invisible cue sheet. The performances are abstract enough to allow each audience member to read into them what they will, and those occasional moments of direct synchronicity between audio and visual are both pleasing and very moving.
Now perhaps it is my fault for being far too “vanilla,” but the easiest way to see everything was to go through each track in order from start to finish rather than mixing things up. Despite the millions of permutations that can be taken, I would be surprised if many audience members strayed from this sequence. Surprisingly, having a map available may have been part of the issue. With a show like Sleep No More, there is no defined map or order of scenes, certainly not one explicitly given to the audience. As such audience members are forced to make their own choices to decide where they want to go, in order to catch more of the narrative.
In Those Before Us: Nolan Park, I could see where the next audio stations were located, both on the printed map handed to us and by scanning the area around me, so I could easily plan where I would go next. And I could keep an eye out for one of the dancers, so that as I concluded one track, I could quickly join in for the beginning of a new one. Clearly this is not a bad thing per se, but my overall choices felt somewhat limited. It was like being promised a choose your own adventure, but in reality finding that someone has clearly highlighted a route in the book, so why should you divert from the suggested path?
The link between each of these memories, of course, is Governors Island itself, with each tale being inspired by real-life happenings on the island, although each particular narrative is a work of fiction. Other than this link, the stories aren’t connected in other ways, and at no point do the memory spirits interact with each other or the audience directly (We are sometimes seen, but not acknowledged). A messy meta-narrative is given to Those Before Us: Nolan Park, which unfortunately takes quite a lot of the poignancy out of the experience. In this meta-narrative, the entire world has been destroyed, with climate change proving to be catastrophic, and we are in a simulation (the “Terrarium”) as a way for us to learn from our histories, from those before us. This science fiction element seemed out of place from the rest of the performance, and made me question why we are physically on Governor’s Island specifically, if it is merely a projection. This overarching frame didn’t add to the experience, but instead actually took something away from the earnest and heartfelt stories that we discovered. A final scene brought us back to this meta-narrative, but was not quite as successful as the portion of the show that I had seen prior to it.
Those Before Us: Nolan Park has an impressive run time, of over 90 minutes, which is particularly appreciated for a free experience (Those Before Us: Nolan Park is running almost exclusively through Kickstarter donations). That being said, one or two of the moments could have perhaps been cut down a little for the sake of audience accessibility, and to conserve phone batteries (my full battery was drained to 30% following the experience). That said, the technology was wonderfully simple to use and an effective method for to bring the stories to life.
The name Those Before Us: Nolan Park implies that this is the first of several installations that we can expect from Rebis Experiences in the future. This was a really beautiful project, and is certainly an exciting display of how technology can be easily adapted and interwoven with immersive storytelling. Combine that with the easy access to the show and it creates a memorable experience which hopefully many people were able to experience during the production’s short run. I can say for certain that we will be exploring more memories together in the future.
Those Before Us: Nolan Park has concluded. Learn more about Rebis Experiences.
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