Apprentice at the End of the World
Devised by ReMap @ UCLA
Apprentice At the End of the World was an immersive performance piece adapted from N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy through UCLA's REMAP (Research in Engineering, Research, Media And Performance). I was honored to be able to participate as a script writer, social impact analyst, and play tester. For several months in the Spring and early Summer of 2018, a group of roughly two dozen writers, actors, designers, programmers, and engineers collaborated in creating an immersive story utilizing live performance and Augmented Reality (AR technology) with specially-programmed applications for this project.
The story of the Broken Earth trilogy is about a fictional world ravaged by climate change and volatile weather, in which certain minorities, called orogenes, can manipulate the earth around them. Orogenes are routinely discriminated against and must face both a hostile world and hostile people in it. For the purposes of our experiment, we thrust the audience into the role of orogenes and used the AR to simulate their abilities. The story framed them as refugees seeking safe passage, an all-too resonant story in 2018.
The project was facilitated by Jeff Burke. Production Manager was Renee Torchio Mac Donald.