Dance Meets Podplay Meets Augmented Reality in ‘Those Before Us’ (Q&A)
An interview with co-creators Katya Stepanova and Jesse Carrey about the upcoming production
In the upcoming audio- and dance-infused immersive piece Those Before Us, audience members will be able to explore Governors Island in an unusual way. Participants will be able to take in the landscape of the island through smartphones and by listening to a soundtrack (either through headphones or Bose AR sound glasses); the recorded narration will guide participants in and around the historic venue, while also encouraging them to switch between narratives across different time periods — learning about events in history that actually took place on the island or could have existed in each location. And these stories about Governors Island are being told through the use of dance.
We spoke to Katya Stepanova and Jesse Carrey of Rebis over email to learn more.
No Proscenium (NP): Can you tell us a little about yourselves and your backgrounds in the immersive arts?
Katya Stepanova (KS): I was born in Minsk, Belarus and immigrated to the U.S. at a young age as a Jewish refugee. I knew I wanted to perform from the first Broadway show my parents could afford — Beauty and the Beast. We got dressed to the nines and sat in the nosebleed section, and I wouldn’t stay in my seat. I danced in the aisles for the majority of the show, and told my mom that I wanted to go on stage. Today, I am a trans-disciplinary artist — I work as an actor, director, writer, and educator. I am a co-founder of Rebis, an immersive experience collective passionate about bringing seemingly opposite mediums together to create immersive experiences that spark empathy by giving the audience a leading role.
My mission is to give a voice to meaningful stories, and present them in a new way to create experiences where the traditional boundaries between performers and audience, stage and reality could dissolve. I studied Acting at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama, and fell in love with physical theater. My senior year, I studied abroad at the Moscow Art Theater, where I experienced new forms of theater that blurred many traditional lines. With classmates at Carnegie Mellon, I created my first immersive company, In the Basement Theater Co in 2011. Upon graduation, we were awarded the Arts @ Renaissance Artist Residency, where we created our first immersive experience, The Lady in Red Converses with Diablo. Since then, I have performed in regional theatres across the country, including the Cincinnati Playhouse, Barrington Stage, and the Contemporary American Theater Festival.
I believe there is a great, often overlooked opportunity to bridge theater and AR/VR. In 2017, I worked on the startup team for VR World, and served as the Head of HR. It was my job to create a company culture and protocol of inclusivity and set standards for how to physically take consumers in and out of virtual reality experiences. I found that the key is to tap into the human imagination, and that we are as willing to play outside of a headset as inside. This takeaway has led to my passion for creating trans-media experiences where stories are told across mediums, but are rooted in the imagination.
Jesse Carrey (JC): I grew up in Baltimore, performing any chance I could. Dance was my first love, and I quickly fell into singing and acting as well. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be an artist. I was a theater major at Baltimore School for the Arts, and was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University’s theater program through their pre-college summer program, where I earned my degree in Musical Theater. My dance mentors growing up came from a very experimental background, so I always had a passion for cross-disciplinary storytelling that goes outside of the box and challenges the norm.
After performing in the commercial theater industry professionally, I quickly realized how limited a lot of musical theater is, stuck in spectacle, revivals, and dated narratives. I had a deep urge to be a part of projects that innovate and revolutionize storytelling without losing the heart of the story itself, and found that if I couldn’t make my way into those spaces and projects, I could make my own space, which brought me to starting Rebis, our immersive experience collective.
My training and experience has allowed me to understand all the tools and devices to create impactful experiences, but it was only my passion and fervor that drove me to step into the immersive theater world and want to create our own work.
It has been so exciting to be a part of this emerging medium and witness the potential of storytelling beyond proscenium theater. And now, the options are truly endless.
NP: What, in a nutshell, is Those Before Us about?
JC: Those Before Us is the convergence of our past, present and future. Through a mysterious voice from the future, the audience embarks on a journey to different spaces throughout history, witnessing memories that could have existed there which are given an emotional life through dancers. As they progress, the audience begins to piece together these stories all for a higher purpose, in hopes to help this person from the future heal her broken world.
KS: Those Before Us is about interacting with our collective history in a completely new way. If we don’t learn history, we are destined to repeat it, and I believe history is best learned through experience rather than a textbook. Those Before Us on Nolan Park is specifically about the lesser-known history of Governor’s Island. In an effort to help a mysterious voice from the future, the audience is invited to explore four narratives from four different time periods, brought to life by four dancers moving between four historic locations. However, the audience is in charge of their own experience and is able to explore freely, creating limitless combinations for how the narratives can be experienced during the live performances.
NP: Why did you create Those Before Us? What inspired you?
JC: Early on in the development of this project, Katya gave me a nugget to hone in on: honor. Honor is a word that is so far removed from American culture. What does it mean to honor one another, or a space, or a memory, or ourselves? The intention of Those Before Us is to unearth this word and physicalize it in real space and time. I don’t know that the word translates well in English. Honor is something that is felt, not spoken. And I felt inspired to create an experience that tries to bring the idea of honor to life, bringing it directly into the hearts of the audience through emotional and visceral storytelling and dance. I felt inspired to bring dance to this experience because it is a universal language that can attempt to manifest meaning of a word that has faded from our culture. I’m not saying we will be able to define honor or give it a new definition. It still is a word that is very unknown to us. But magic lives in the unknown, and the beauty lies in asking the question. That is when it takes root.
KS: I am fascinated by history, and am often frustrated at how little information there is about the structures, spaces, fields, buildings all around me in the world. I believe that by learning about our collective history in a new way, we will bring about a brighter future. New findings in neuroscience have proven that we remember the things we experience on a much deeper psychological level than what we read, because an experience is physical rather than intellectual, and physical experiences are stored in our long-term rather than short-term memory. We created Those Before Us to activate historic public spaces by giving a physical life to their history for anyone to experience. Through live performance, these spaces will be able to reach a new, intergenerational audience as well as build community and relationships between these organizations and the artists who are local or relevant to each historic location. Ultimately, our goal is to reignite a collective interest in history through immersive storytelling and spark conversations surrounding events in history.
NP: Who are your collaborators and how did they get involved?
JC: Our collective of collaborators are from many different walks of life.
Stephen Carrey-Chan (writer), Alex Spieth (writer), Zach Fifer (Voice Actor), Grace Rao (Voice Actor, Olivia Hearn (Costume Designer), and Toro Adeyemi (PR Director) are former classmates of ours from Carnegie Mellon University. Mallory Galarza (Dancer), Daan Bootsma (Dancer), and Queenie Wu (Brand and Experience Designer) are from the Arts on Site community that Katya and I are Volunteer Directors for. Ashton Muniz (Dancer, Voice Actor), Becca Barrett (Producer), Alex Ryaboy (Sound Designer), and Kimberly Dodson (Writer) are past collaborators and friends of ours, while Kerime Konur (Dancer), Melissa Oakes (Voice Actor), Daniel King (Unity Developer), Clare Edgerton (Copy Writer), Michaela Holland (Co-Marketing Director), and Karena Phan (Co-Marketing Director) are all brand new to the team!
It has been so wonderful to see all these different, talented, and highly skilled artists come together for this project. It is very fulfilling as a creator and co-founder of this company. This is one of the reasons we started Rebis; to create space and opportunities for other artists, and to create a new standard for collaboration.
NP: How is Governors Island incorporated into the experience?
KS: Governors Island is already such an immersive space. You feel like you are in a world apart when you walk by Fort Jay and catch glimpses of the NY skyline, juxtaposed with colonial-era structures. It’s like you can feel of how many people walked on the same path before you did when you wander the island. Nolan Park specifically is so rich in history, and yet so little of it is recorded in the plaques around the island. In Those Before Us, Governors Island is our stage, and we are all merely players. The island is alive with memory, stored in every corner, every tree, every rock. I think it’s the perfect first location for Those Before Us, and we hope to honor the island in a unique way for the 750,000+ visitors the island receives every summer.
JC: Governors Island is already such a beautiful, immersive space to begin with. Those Before Us is inspired by both the architecture and the history of the island, so our work there is already done. But we also have the opportunity to illuminate the history of Governors Island that we don’t often consider. We are collaborating with the American Indian Community House to honor the Indigenous history of the Governors Island before it was ever called by that name.
Lastly, when you visit the island, you notice how the trees have a strong energy and wisdom to them. The trees and the natural environment are at the heart of this experience, even beyond the historical structures where the dancers will be performing. Trees are truly the original beings before us, who have witnessed all that has come to be, and are teachers for how we can live in harmony with nature.
NP: How is the audience incorporated into the work? What kinds of choices can the participants make in Those Before Us?
JC: The audience is given a map and has full autonomy to travel between spaces, unlocking narratives placed in specific locations at each space. The audience plays a voyeuristic role, witnessing these stories and movements as if existing between time and space. While the audience can experience Those Before Us in a linear fashion, they are encouraged to experiment with which dancer and narrative they follow, even having the opportunity to unlock a musical journey that gives the audience a more visceral and abstract experience of the memories on Governors Island. We want each audience member to choose their own path, and see what discoveries and connections they find, uncovering the interconnectedness between the memories and our collective history and impending future on this earth.
NP: How are you designing around audience agency, consent, and safety?
JC: Audience members that bring their own headphones will be able to unlock these narratives by scanning QR codes located at specific locations on the map provided at the start of the experience. Those who reserve one of the 20 Bose Frames available for each performance will be able to explore the map freely and will be prompted to activate specific memories through physical gestures. The audience is encouraged to witness these memories rather than interact with them, so there is a clear boundary between performer and audience. However, the audience can choose their vantage point, and decide how far or close they want to be to the dancer to experience these stories throughout space and time.
NP: You’re crowdfunding the production, as well as making it free for everyone to attend — what led to those decisions?
JC: Governors Island has a mission to bring free programming to their visitors which allowed us to create an experience that is accessible to anyone who is interested and curious. While it can be nerve wracking as a new company to rely solely on crowd-funding to make this project happen without any ticket sales to offset costs, we felt confident that we have an exciting opportunity to make immersive experiences accessible and bring in new audience members that might not ever think to experience this innovative medium. We hope that companies and organizations will see the impact of bringing transformational experiences to the public for free rather than keeping them exclusive and at a high price point. We hope to find future funding through grants, sponsorships, and commissions so that the artists can get compensated and the audience can have a low entry point into immersive experiences.
NP: What aspect of Those Before Us is the most exciting to you?
KS: I’m most excited about giving people a one-of-a-kind experience in a space that they have likely explored only a few times, even if they are native New Yorkers. The fact that the audience has complete autonomy over the order of their experience is also incredibly exciting to me. We tried to do the math of how many possible versions of Those Before Us an audience can choose from, and the number turned out to be ridiculous… practically infinite, essentially. I believe that audiences are brilliant and are more invested when they have a choice about what to do throughout the experience, and I’m excited to see what happens and see if there are any patterns that emerge, and give people an opportunity to discuss their individual experience of this story.
JC: The potential of this project feels almost infinite, and my excitement is only contained by the fact that we need to get to our Kickstarter goal and follow through with making this experience a success! We aim to partner with other historical spaces throughout New York City and across the country, collaborating with cultural organizations and local artists to bring the memories of that space to life. By creating a structure and format for creating a Those Before Us experience, I am so excited to see how we can make this a global activation where we can facilitate the collaboration between historical spaces, local artists, and cultural organizations of that city.
We are very eager to invite representatives to come experience Those Before Us and open a dialogue about how we can bring Those Before Us to new locations.
NP: What do you hope participants take away from the experience?
JC: I want participants to leave this experience feeling connected to each other, to our collective past, and feel a unified desire to take action towards a better future. I hope our audience feels called to learn more about the history that isn’t spelled out in our history books. I hope our audience feels inspired to engage more with cultural organizations like the American Indian Community house to educate themselves on indigenous culture and The Great Law of Peace. I hope the audience leaves with a newfound curiosity for the history behind public spaces they inhabit. And most of all, I want the audience to enter back into the world with a better understanding of what it can mean to honor the past, each other, and the future that we shape every day.
KS: I hope participants are inspired to learn about indigenous history when they walk away from this experience, both the history of Governors Island as well as the rest of the United States. I believe it is important to investigate the past and honor those who are native to the land upon which we live today. I hope that participants discover that it’s possible to learn about history through experience rather than a textbook, and that they will be open to more audio-immersive experiences as this medium develops and takes on new form. There is so much that is possible with the new technology we have today, and I hope participants are excited at the prospect of what is next to come!
Those Before Us runs August 2–11 on Governors Island in NYC. Tickets are free. Please bring your own headphones and a phone with web capability.
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