Out of Hand ft. The Lunatics - ' Group Intelligence: a mass MP3 experience'

The Luncatics @ Oerol Terschelling (2006). Photo: Hans Speekenbrink

 

Previews:

Thursday, April 14 - Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Emory University - Atlanta, GA

Free admission

Premieres:
Thursday, April 21 - Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 7:00 PM
Woodruff Park - Atlanta, GA

Free admission

For review by David Lee Simmons in the Arts Critic ATL (April 25, 2011).

Group Intelligence: a mass MP3 experience is a spectacular outdoor event about the origins of life and water scarcity. It is a new, outdoor, science and public art experiment. The audience downloads an MP3 track in advance or borrows one from Out of Hand. They all press play at the same time and are guided through an hour-long experience around themes of water scarcity and origins of life chemistry.

During the experience, participants will walk, run, solve problems, laugh, play and build something extraordinary together. How hard the audience works is up to each individual, but the diversity of the group is key. Each performance is limited to 300 participants, but everyone is invited to watch the experiment unfold. Group Intelligence is suitable for ages 12 and up. Audiences are highly encouraged to wear close-toed, sensible shoes.

For almost 15 years, the Lunatics has been performing ingenious theatre in all kinds of places throughout the world. From soggy Dutch marshland to sweltering jungles, from bustling cities to barren deserts, the most absurd locations have served as the Lunatics* fairytale stage. Bizarre imagery transports the audience to an adventurous world that is wild, hilarious and moving at the same time. Realistic situations are connected with inexplicable, logic with mystery. Nothing seems what it is. Various light and sound effects, unique objects and idiosyncratic yet identifiable characters combine in The Lunatics' performances to activate the imaginations of thousands. The locations are critical, as they provide a constantly changing backdrop that inspires the imaginations of both actor and audience; each story has not one, but hundreds of versions.

Out of Hand Theater Company. Photo: www.outofhandtheater.com

Out Of Hand Theater makes new work for new audiences. We are a collection of writer/director/performers who make ravishing, athletic performances with and for our ever expanding, beloved community. Out Of Hand creates razor-sharp, delight-filled experiences by involving the audience in a new way every time, giving you a stake in the show; magnifying the places where we, artists and audience, share common ground, causing moments of mass intimacy, and embracing those who are unreached by conventional theater.

This is not the first time the two companies have been working together. The Lunatics and Out of Hand collaborated before for Hominid (2010), a story about depiction of the politics, intrigue and capacity for empathy we share with the other great apes. Science and Art collide in this international, location theatre collaboration.