“it is as if the artist has glimpsed inside your heart and mind, and made a gift just for you. One that you will carry with you. - Lyn Gardner on Sharron Devine’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe immersive work, “I worried my heart wasn't big enough”
The word Immersive is a wee bit of a dirty word in theatre eh? I think it is because a lot of people who have spent zero time training in or learning this craft or never made any immersive work, throw the word around and attach it to, really not immersive works. This weakens the skill and craft of those who have researched and experimented in the Science for years on how to genuinely create immersive works and worlds for audience and performer to inhabit.
“one of the most powerful immersive experiences I’ve had was a one-on-one performance at Forest Fringe. Sharron Devine’s ‘I worried my heart wasn’t big enough’ invited me to trespass into the heart of her relationship with her mother. We shared foil-covered biscuits on a sofa and dressed up in too-big clothes – but her silence throughout the experience opened up space for an incredible sense of shared grief, as lingering as the cigarette perfume of the 1970s rooms we moved through.
That sense of care and intimacy would be impossible to roll out or to merchandise (at Forest Fringe, it was free, paid for by donations). But what makes immersive theatre so fascinating, and so vulnerable, is the way it creates worlds in microcosm: and with them, economic or political systems, too. You can brew a riot in a closed space, or start a cult.” Alice Saville (Freelance arts and culture writer for Exeunt, Time Out, Financial Times)
I have been making intimate and immersive works for one audience member or micro audiences for 12 years, This work has taken me all over the world and I have created these kinds of works and workshops around my practice in Dundee, Liverpool, Sheffield, Denmark, NYC, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Italy and most recently a full commission of my work in Coventry in an old Fish and Chip Shop during Coventry UK City of Culture 2021. No space is safe or off limits, I will create anywhere and everywhere. I work mostly solo but experimenting and collaborating constantly with my audience as to what really works and what does not. My work is multi layered with my audience member always situated at the core of the work and experience. I call these intimate works, human specific and these works are always in conversation my my audience exploring what it means to be human. My works are often sensory and aurally led with sense of Smell a sense I am particularly experienced in and enjoy working with. These works I make are always visual, always play with form and my audience are always engaged in a meaningful act of some kind from the moment of arrival, they are never allowed to be passive.
On leaving the experience, both Artist and audience are transformed in some way by our unique shared encounter together.