 Welcome to Experiments in Digital Storytelling with LaMama and Culture Hub. Good afternoon. This is Maddie. I'm here in Brooklyn. And today we are bringing you a program that is working with emerging technologies to explore what we can do with emerging technologies to create dynamic and meaningful storytelling experiences using the internet. This was supposed to be an in-person series based in the downstairs at LaMama, but of course that is not possible. So we've brought the entire program online. And today we're doing multiple technical feats in that we are exploring this new world of VR Theatre with Double-I Studios and we're doing that while all being remotely distributed across various states and boroughs. So today there are a lot of different levels of experimentation happening. We're working today supporting Double-I Studios, which is a group that's exploring VR Theatre which is really actors working in a virtual world that's been designed and working with writers who are writing specifically for this virtual context. So our goal is really to create a space for this type of experimentation and there's really not much precedent here. There aren't plenty of people who have decided, okay great I want to make a play in VR. So Kira Benzing who's the director and her whole team at Double-I are really building pipelines and really forging out into the unknown to say both technically what is possible, how can we do this both in real spaces and distributed and artistically through the acting, the directing and the writing. So they have to make a lot of different choices and today you're going to see some of those choices happen live and some things that they're trying today they might not have ever tried before. So it's exciting and there might be differences between the two shows because this we've got a show at 1 p.m. which you're watching, welcome and we'll have another show at 6 p.m. In this program they'll show 20 minutes of Pandora X which is a new production they're developing based on the Greek myth and we'll see where it takes us. This program, we have them on stage with Le Mame and Quilterhub in April with their open rehearsal process and so this is a continuation of that rehearsal process. Experiment and digital storytelling is also working with Dream Adoption Society which will have another work of VR theater the last weekend of May with Kristof Grabarczewski who's developing and directing in Poland. So great, yes this is Le Mame and Quilterhub and now we are welcoming Double Eye Studios and Kira Benzing. Thank you Maddie, it is so nice to be here with all of you gathered virtually and digitally across all of these spaces and we are really excited to bring you something new today. Just as Maddie was explaining we are testing things, we are running something new for you. This is new work, we have not put this in front of an audience before and we will be trying out some different ideas. We've been doing this parallel structure that we've been exploring for the last bit of time, something that we've premiered at the Venice Film Festival production called Love Seat where we ran in front of a live audience and simultaneously in virtual reality and we would have done that of course in New York City with many of you watching live, gathered in the Le Mame Downstairs space in partnership with Quilterhub but instead you were here with us live and the digital streams of Facebook and the social media realms and then we also have some of you now joining us in our Greek chorus in virtual reality, we've built this world of Mount Olympus and I want to take you back to do a little recap of what we did in the first round of experiments and digital storytelling at Quilterhub last month. We ran this experiment with live audiences and together we generated these word clouds and they were these kinds of collages from people's dreams and people's aspirations and so this evolved in real time and so I'm going to play a little video from that and also the new collage that we generated based on photographs that many of you submitted to us online and here goes this video now about these video collages stand by. So this was a word cloud that was generated by one of our audiences in April last month and you can see how people were generating all kinds of aspirations and goals and the main one that came up was flying so stay tuned for that, that was a superpower that they wished on and this is a collage where we reached out in social media to gather collective images around these important themes and these first set of images came from the theme of wisdom so thank you to those of you who submitted these photos to us so we could bring this together and the second theme that you're seeing came from the theme of love which is yet another important theme and people were taking walks finding these images in nature out in the real world right now and bringing these to us I know that some of these images also came from some really quiet times and moments people were reflecting on hikes this third image comes from courage and I want you digital audience to pay attention to this because you may be seeing some of these things later going from a two-dimensional form into a three-dimensional form and our final theme is hope and this theme is particularly important for this production because this is what Pandora preserved in the box and all of these other themes that you have seen were blessings that the gods had endowed hope in so keep your eyes peeled for these because they are offerings that you contributed from the digital world and they will be made as offerings to the gods in the virtual world so that was really one of our very first experiments and our actors are getting ready backstage right now they are taking their places in the virtual land of Mount Olympus our Greek chorus is practicing something special they've just been let through a portal and as that is happening right now I'm going to take you into one other really neat tool that was painted by our till brush artist Sarah Finn Huntley there are all of these really interesting things that we can play with going from traditional theatrical formats traditional cinematic formats and the double eye we're trying to combine all of those things into a kind of new inventive pipeline and so we've been playing with the ability to sketch and draw in a three-dimensional way and Sarah Finn Huntley has brought this drawing of Pandora to life for us so we're going to play some of that and then right from there we're going to take you straight into the world of Mount Olympus virtually where you will get to see what our actors have cooked up for you in this new myth that we are retelling and so now we will take you into till brush straight into Mount Olympus I will see you there look I got a cube see these these cubes go ahead and bring those cubes back to the fire four cubes the right and left awesome and let's go ahead and put them right here on the fire these are the offerings the magical offerings that we'll be making oops that we'll be making to to the gods one of them represents wisdom one represents hope one of them represents love start bringing the cubes across we've gotten them we look like we're missing one cube oh it's over there let me go grab it you want me to go grab it we're moving the cubes Alyssa Alyssa okay no no come back come back Chris come back bring back the cube bring back the cube Chris cool he's gone right okay well I guess this means we've started so you all know what to do you know what your lines are everybody grab a cube have we started oh the I lost it guys everybody grab a cube say your lines say your lines and let's go to the stage ready I hope to return what are these murmurs these wild rumors flying your cube on the left one over there. Can it be? Has my chance come again? Answer me! I, the Great Zeus, do so command! Hear the Great Zeus, please! He is command! At last! Pandora is dead! Long live Pandora! Make an offering to the gods, and hope shall return! Hope shall return! At last! My friends, hope shall be returned to us! Here, where it belongs, on Mount Olympus, and as for the mortals, my vengeance will finally be complete! Down! Down mankind shall fall! Down! Down and punished one and all! That is my will! That is my vow! Come, and gather round me now! Satars and mints of the forest and streams! Roses of Greece, who give glory through song! Goddesses, gods! Awake from your dreams! Come hither! Come nigh, and join the throne! Are you here? Yes, I feel you near. Lend me your ears and eyes, my friends and allies! For the time has come to strike again, to shatter with fear the hearts of all men! Oh, wow! I wonder that. Mithius! Did you think my vengeance forgotten? That your act, misbegotten and exceedingly ambitious, would be lost on Mount Olympus! Do you not recall the destruction and danger? A thunder, the fearsome bolts of anger which from this, my very hand, rained down upon the heads of men? A plague upon you for stealing fire? A plague on all men who embrace their desire? And by that beloved object shall know a fate most abject. Living in fear, bereft without a shred of hope left. Did you think my vengeance was forgotten? That the passage of time would have face it somehow? Nothing is forgotten! My friends, my friends, if you recall how we shaped the most beautiful maid of all, like an immortal goddess in face, fashioned with all conceivable grace. Yay! With our talents we designed a shameless nature, a curious mind, a singular spirit strong and proud became her well, the all endowed Pandora! To wreak my vengeance, sharp and swift, I sent with you a poisoned gift, a vessel of inconceivable worth filled with the evils of the earth, your fate to wed a mortal man. And by this, your lovely hand to unleash destruction on the land obedient to my command. That was my will. That was my vow. Yet, where are we now? Pandora, I have not forgotten! Nothing is forgotten! And full of wiles, with your seductive ears, your devious smiles! What are you doing? Nothing. You weren't rhyming? Rhyming? Of course not. Really? But I lied to you, my dear. What do you? About the time you said you had no idea why Hercules was so strong when you knew he was your son. Well, I... All about the time you sent Hades to kidnap Persephone so I wouldn't realize she was one of your many conquests. I did... That's how I kept finding feathers in your hair, even though you swore you weren't seeing Leda anymore. Now, honey, we've talked about this many times, but... Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Don't you now, honey me. You're up to something. And if you're rhyming, it can mean it's no good. Don't be ridiculous. It's Pandora again, isn't it? The old one has passed on and her successor has inherited the box of hope. Am I right? How should I know if Pandora's alive or dead? Oh, you think I don't know about your dalliance with the original Pandora's granddaughter? I can read you like a book. You hope to go back to the mortal world and seduce the latest in a long line of Pandora's, hoping she'll be all just so enamored that she'll hand the box of hope over to you. She's what your great, great, great, a thousand times great-granddaughter. You should be ashamed of yourself. Now, sweetling, you know the portal from Mount Olympus to Earth has been lost for ages. I've been looking for it for five centuries. I mean, it's driving me crazy. Oh, boo-hoo. Yes, well, at any case, Pandora is the farthest thing from my mind. I don't care about her anymore. Perhaps that was the case before, and quite likely it was not. The past is long-forgot. Aha! You rhymed. I knew it. You only do that when there's a new Pandora and you're catching a dastardly plot to get the box of hope out of her hands and into your own clutches. Look, my dear, my dear, my dear, my dear. That is a silly presumption. Now, look, my friends and I are having a meeting and you very rudely interrupted, so if you would... Ah, yes, your friends, your friends, right, mere shadows of their former selves, I see. My friends and I, their power and might like my own remains undiminished. Right, right, right. Whatever you have to tell yourself. Ah, be gone, woman! Enough of your chatter! Oh, my dear, I fear your is mad as a hatter. Guys, how is it God supposed to think around here? Ah, where was I? Ah, ah, right, Pandora. Well, we all know the story. I sent her down to Earth with a box full of evils, and I told her, don't open the box. But she, unable to resist, lifted the lid and released plagues, etc., etc., etc., all according to my plan. But what I didn't know was that that crafty creature, that sly little minx, had played on us the most devious of tricks. Only later did we discover the theft that she had sold in all hope before she left. Listen, what? Do you say the fault was mine? That I should have something, something divine? For Olympus' sake, you've gone and thrown me off my stride. How was I supposed to know that Pandora believed me when I sent her down to Earth, when I said it was a gift for mankind, and that she thought that I'd accidentally forgotten to include hope. So she slipped it into the box, and then trapped it in the box, when she realized I'd actually sent her to Earth with a multitude of plagues. And you moved people away from me just because I had to throw the photo in a moment. Right, right. You're right. You're all right. That's all in the past. I must look to the future and come up with a plan, a plan, something new, something dig the box back here where it belongs. But what? I mean, I tried everything. You know, fear, seduction, pain, torture, chocolate, and she has resisted it all. And this last Pandora, I mean, she was the worst of all, tough as, wait a minute. The new Pandora is young, innocent, untried. I have a thought. A strongman passes. The new one perforce learns the ways of power in due course. But for now, weak as a babe in arms, how will she resist an old lady's charms? Oh, my dear, you don't know me, but I was a great friend of your grandmother's. Oh, God rest her soul. Do you need some help going through her things? Oh, no, no, no. You don't need to thank me. I'm just happy to help. Oh, well, if you insist, then a little keepsake would be nice. Mmm, perhaps this little box to remember her by. Wait, what? What, what? What say you? Wait, the temple of Artemis? Oh, but the temple of Artemis, I've scoured it from top to bottom. There is no portal there. And wait, what? Oh, did I look behind the throne? Did I look? Did I not? Again, all is forgot. Well, there is nothing for it. I will have to search again. I will return, my friend. That's all move just over here, you guys. A little bit away, child princess, please come over here. My poor, deluded husband. Well, search and scour till your heart's content, for the portal has been in my power these past 500 years. Ah, as fast as my son. Thank you for creating the means for me to enter the mortal world through my ends and my ends alone. This part always makes me feel so silly. You do have a sense of humor, my son. From Mount Olympus to the mortal shore, I command you up here. Oh, portal door. One more. Now, let's have done with this Pandora business once and for all. Hey, my gosh, you guys, you were awesome. Let's gather in a circle right here. Come and gather in a circle. So now, hi. What we're going to do is we are going to express the audience members online are all expressing a wish for humanity and we are all also going to express a wish for humanity. It can be something like what, um, what, uh, Pandora, we asked everyone what was the super power that they most wish that they could have and the answer was flying. So today we are going to give that gift to all of you and we are all going to learn how to fly and explore different video feeds. So far we haven't broken, but that may still happen today. Chris, are they ready? Something that's happening in the virtual world right now that we wanted to do with you in the real world and in the additional world is to have you express your wish for humanity. And so for those of you that might be watching through social media, whether that is commenting with us on Twitter or commenting on Facebook or for those of you who are just at home and might have tuned in and have a chance or you're even coming to this later in time because this is a live event and maybe you've discovered this and time of course is non-linear. So this could be at any point. We would love for you to express your wish for humanity. That could be like one of the wishes and blessings that was given to Pandora in one of those themes like wisdom or courage or of course hope. But if you have another one that you want to share, feel free to express that with us. And we thought this would be a nice moment to do that. And that's something that's happening simultaneously right now in the virtual world. The audience and the rechorus are getting together and they are expressing their wish for humanity. So we thought that we would try to bring these worlds together in this moment of hope. So just take a moment to reflect now and share that. And we thank you all for being here and we're going to move into a Q&A. Our actors are coming down from Mount Olympus. They're taking off their virtual gear and turning back into their human selves and they're going to join us in a Q&A in a bit. And we're going to start actually with our dear colleague, Yara Espanolik Bharti, who's joining us. She's a professor of phenomenology and Milan, an individual artist. And she's going to be joining us in just a moment for the Q&A. There's one other thing that I just wanted to thank you for, digital audience. For those of you that were so amazing to be a part of our first experiment in April as in this series with Culture Hub, we asked you to express the superpower that you wanted and you asked for the ability to fly. And so that is a wish that has now been granted in virtual reality for the virtual audience. So just in a moment now, all of those virtual audience members are going to be given this gift and learn how to fly in our world of Mount Olympus. So thank you so much for sharing that with us so we could give that to them. So that is your gift that you have sent into the virtual world. So now we're going to welcome Yara Espanolik Bharti to the stage, along with Mark Sternberg, my technical producer and tech lead on this production. Hello. Hello to you both. Hello to the entire team. And congratulations for working miracles one after the next. And for making Greece come true. So since Kira mentioned the wish of flying, I would actually start right away with the two of you, discussing how that came about from a technical perspective and also the creative point of view. Creative point of view is pretty simple. I mean, I think regularly I champion the ability to fly in all virtual worlds. I mean, of course, it doesn't make sense for all narratives, but we're in the land of Greek mythology where people have magic powers. So of course, they should fly. That fits our narrative really well. So hats off to the digital audience that wanted that superpower. And absolutely. And we've been very excited to be exploring this new release called Udon, which Mark can talk more about, that got implemented really quickly. And a shout out to the VR chat founders, Jesse and Graham and our new colleague, Jason over there. They have been incredibly helpful. And we are so excited to be able to implement flying in about four weeks. And that's also, you know, a major salute to Mark for pulling that off because it's been a lot of development implementation to do that from where we were just in April, four weeks later, to where we are right now. So Mark, do you want to? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, as Kira mentioned, the release for VR chat added a lot more freedom to what you can do in their software. You know, a lot of the things that you see in the world right now are thanks to Udon specifically, especially the flying, which, you know, one of the users, Peptron One, provided for the community. And we just implemented it in this world. You know, it took a little bit of tweaking, but we got it there. And, you know, you can also see a lot of other great things that we're able to implement because so many people in the larger VR and program and community have provided them. You know, you see some great Tilt Brush art by Sara from Huntley. That was implemented because, you know, Tilt Brush not only provided, you know, great platform, but also the ability to bring it into unity. As again mentioned, some of you may have heard of that is sort of provides a basis for all of the our chat. Okay, well, thank you for that insight. I must say, your team is also very good in unveiling the themes of our era. Last time we saw love scenes for the love dynamics of the contemporary world. And now Pandora is spot on. It's very serendipitous that it came out right now that we're living obviously a similar situation with the pandemic. I was also very impressed with your initiative of encouraging people to send photos about things such as wisdom, courage, love and hope. And they were all related to nature. So, Kira, how does that connect with the times we are living in in terms of wanting to really engage with the world outside and also in seeing how our planet has benefited from us staying indoors? We're in such an amazing time in history. And I think that we're all going to look back at this moment and remember our strength as as a human race and hopefully the best of our abilities and that we have discovered new things as a human race. There's something kind of regular to the the work that I do with Alyssa Landry, our lead writer on this production, who will join us on the second part of the Q&A. Alyssa and I regularly like to do these kinds of collective audience moments where people generate a piece of themselves and then we bring that into the work. So as we can see, we did these collective collages that started with these word clouds in the first experiment. Now this is turned into something more tangible that Mark was actually able to 3D model and turn into something that we could bring into the virtual world. So we are, you know, taking these kind of collective elements and something that I see that I feel like is coming from the collective unconscious is this reconnection to nature. Everyone is taking these walks. People are getting very self-reflective and journaling. They're showing these sharing these beautiful images of nature to their social media feeds or even in personal groups. Things that really touch them and I felt really touched by that. And I thought if we're bestowing the greatest of gifts to Pandora and therefore also to humanity, then what can we pull? And I thought, you know, even though we're living, we're spending all of the time creating this new reality and performance in a virtual world, it would be beautiful to bring something from the natural world that we really cherish. So that felt like a special something we could do as an offering to the gods. Yeah, and it was definitely really fun incorporating things from the real world. You know, we have the photos in there. We have some shadows that are sitting on the rocks near the front of the stage. So there's a lot of fun things from the real world that we were able to bring to the virtual. And how are you inspired? And also if you can tell us technically how you managed to create Mount Olympus in a virtual reality and give this very spectacular and futuristic aspect to it? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of 3D modeling work that goes into this. We also did some tweaking on the 3D models of even the avatars themselves and almost made them completely new models, some of them. So yeah, I mean, you know, using a bevy of programs, you know, Photoshop, which most of you probably heard of Blender, which is a 3D modeling program, similar to Maya. And then, you know, again, Tilt Brush, some of the stuff is just made in Tilt Brush. And then, you know, all these things then go into Unity, which, you know, the name, as the name says, it unifies with everything. So it's, it's a great program to work in. And it gives you a lot of freedom and allows us to create great things like this, a world that is really supernatural and certainly awesome to look at and fly around in for extended periods of time. Well, it's fantastic. And I was so fascinated by the use of shadows, and I have a question for Gira in those regards, because it somehow evoked to me the allegory of the cave of Plato, where prisoners are chained to a cave and see nothing but shadows on the wall, and they start to believe that those shadows are the realities. And when one of the prisoners escapes, and he goes back to tell his fellow prisoners that what they were seeing was actually the perception of real world, they didn't believe him. They thought he was lying. So I was wondering, how does virtual reality and the worlds we create and the shadows somehow you create portray this idea of human perception related to the environment you're elaborating in? Yes, we are, you know, we are playing with these different levels of reality and conception, like you're saying. And, and again, there's something kind of really magical, I think, about the human form and the human body, and, and, you know, how can we bring those pieces into a virtual world? So, you know, we're trying to like mix the worlds in, in both directions and see where they meet. And there's something that we wanted to do on a theatrical stage that dealt with shadows, which we didn't get to do because we, we can't be in the theater in New York right now. So we took this concept, you know, and not also came from a brainstorm session that we were having as a team. And I want to attribute some of the shadows concept to Chris Tepino, who's in the Suzanna Tech team and is teaching people how to fly in the virtual world right now. And that, you know, this felt like another way that we could integrate them. So I thought if we're bringing these elements of the natural world in through images, what if we do that with people's shadows? So actually, the shadows that, and I don't know that the, that the live stream audience has been able to see any of this, but certainly the virtual audience can, and they also have to pay attention to the detail. It's not in your face. It's kind of subtle. And they're, you know, appearing on these rocks in the environment, kind of like you're saying, going back to the cave, perhaps, you know, all the way back, we only go forward by remembering where we came from. Well, thank you. I believe we, we can also expand the conversation with the rest of the team. So, we can evolve more shadows from this beautiful reality we have created. Definitely. So we will be joined by the, our actress, Jen and Jonathan, our writer, Alyssa. And I think we're saying goodbye to Mark, for just for the time being. Thank you. We'll see you next time. I'll see you guys in VR flying around. Well, I guess we could just say to anyone who's watching, you know, Levi, if you have any technical questions for us, feel free to leave them in the comments and we'll do our best to get back to those. Absolutely. Please do. Sounds good. Bye guys. I'll see you later. See you in the virtual world. Wonderful. With all the creative team, hello to New York, here with us of course. I'd like to jump in the writing right away with Alyssa, because this is the first time I saw a Greek chorus in VR. And I know you have an extensive experience in musical theater that actually has acquired this narrative tool way back. But this, as I said, this is the first time I was seeing it in VR. So I want you to know how it was for you to apply it to this new media. Well, it was very interesting because, of course, everyone has a little bit of difficulty hearing each other. And there's a little bit of a time lag, depending on where everyone in the virtual audience is. So very quickly we had to let go of the idea that everyone was going to be speaking in rhythm together and just created this murmur. And we just thought if everybody just kind of whispers it and says it and in whatever rhythm they want to, then we're still getting the message of cross of the Greek chorus. They're not reciting together, but we thought it would give something very interesting, especially since we're imagining that Mount Olympus is not really people with real satyrs and mints and gods and goddesses, but sort of shadows of their former selves. So we were imagining that this could be just something that they were whispering and, of course, is hearing all kinds of stuff all around them. So we really had to let go of that musical, rhythmic, everybody speaking together idea and just go with something that would give atmosphere instead. Well, it definitely did convey that atmosphere. I also would like to chat with our fantastic actors that I had the chance to see live in Venice. I had the chance to see here on the Culture Hub again with Love Seed in April. And here you are again in a mythical setting. And I was fascinated by how you two always play together. It's a romantic interest. As an Italian, I saw that you could be a duo like the Sofialare and Marcello Mazzagliani of the VR. So I was wondering how the two of you are working on this different love dynamic through VR as a team of performers. Jen, do you want to jump on that one? I can't hear Jen. Well, I'll jump in really quick then. So here is referencing to Love Seed, the show that Jen and I worked on this past summer with Double Eye at Venice in LA. And that one, it's two people who are just meeting each other and do not meet cute. And so this, you know, for me, I'm sorry, I'm back over here. We're having some for some reason each other's thoughts before, yeah, they just they know each other inside and out. And, you know, it's interesting, of course, about performing in VR is that the way that you read the other person is so much about about their gesture and how they're moving since you don't have the same sort of intricacy of face. And, you know, the avatars kind of give you so much of that sense in terms of how the other person is thinking. Is Jen with us? I would like to about directing the actors. Okay, wonderful. Are you all hearing Jen? No, unfortunately, I'm not. So I would, in the meantime, I would like to know from our director's perspective how it is to direct actors in VR. And if you think, since you have a very extensive background also in live theater, stage theater in cinema, if you think that actors now they should develop their acting skills and their craft through VR, that's an additional thing that they should add to their CV. That would be cool. I think if we had more performers to be joining us in our virtual world, it would give more people for Jen and Jonathan to be playing with. And they are definitely ahead of the curve. They have gained a certain technical understanding that makes it really easy for them to work with. And of course, they're already very smart people, but, you know, they've been learning an additional skill set about how to teleport and how to fly and how to make those choices as their avatars with intention. And I think that that's something that's really special to see as a kind of evolution in their development as performers. And it would be great to see other performers try these things on. I mean, this might not be for everyone. I don't know that every performer wants to work in a virtual world and wants to, you know, wear a motion capture suit. I mean, what we were doing in Venice was a low-fi version of motion capture, which they also got really accustomed to and understanding their gear and also, you know, remembering their human body and kind of the balance between those things. But there's so much here that we're all learning and discovering together. And I mean, you know, we were tweaking, blocking and there's so much further we can go. And, you know, we just, we just really got a number of things working to be able to present this so far. And, you know, we just want to keep going further. And I think that Jonathan and Jen and, you know, we'll be evolving even more as these VR actors. But yeah, I think it could be exciting to see other performers try and learn some of these skills. Jonathan, I mean, how do you feel as you are, you know, maybe in your kind of evolution even, Kiarra, as I pivot a question to Jonathan, you know, like, I'm curious how you feel as you've developed from working on Love Seat to now. Yeah. I think it's, I'm constantly learning. And it does feel like I'm learning a new skill that's very related to performing on stage and also to an extent performing on camera. And there are some, a lot of things that I learned in Love Seat that I'm able to apply in this show. And then because the show is different, there are a lot of new skills. Today, I've discovered what audience interaction is like in a new way because, you know, because Yes, we're having just like some technical improvisation, which makes it really exciting. And we're back. We also have Jen. So maybe Jen can tell us, hello again. So maybe you can tell us about your craft of an act and how it has evolved through virtual reality and how you can consider it in the, in the world of your colleagues. Yeah, we were, I think we're at right now in the world where large gatherings aren't available to us. Gathering in these giant different places is obviously something that we can do. And you had mentioned like, would probably be a good idea if actors could be introduced and have the equipment and the aid of people like Karen and her team to help us learn and understand this world and hear and other VR artists help making live here at theater. So we can actually have somewhere to work. We aren't going to be able, probably, to join large spaces for a while. And maybe you said, it might be a good idea for actors to have the ability and the means to learn the VR things to be able to act and just so we simply will be able to work. And it is a skill set that is very technical and very troubleshooting. And it's something I think it, for me, at least it takes a kind of patience and a and a curiosity to understand the technical elements and what people are trying to do that is theater, that is film, that is just straight up computers on computers on computers and what that layering does and being able to have some type of understanding of how virtual reality works so that we can then have a space to work and perform and eventually share with others, which is, for me, the whole point of performing. So it requires people would have actors would have to, you know, be able to have access to a headset and access to a team like double eye who can help us. But, you know, we're at the very beginning here. So it's like, there's, I don't think that there's any sort of limits as to what we can do or we can learn, we can provide for other performers. Well, definitely, it's very meaningful. And we are living in the future. We always think about these things as so far ahead. But these things are happening as also the technical team has demonstrated by granting the wish of the last month of seeing characters fly. And obviously, this wouldn't be possible without the work of you performers and the wonderful writing of people like Alyssa. And I wanted to know from Alyssa, how do you create characters that manage to weld the mythical with the contemporary? Because I was very impressed by Hera, who obviously represents the mythical image, but she also seems to be very destiny wise. So someone relatable nowadays. I was just assuming that the gods have always meddled with humankind. So I was just assuming, going on the idea that even though they weren't able to meddle anymore because of this portal that's been gone for so long, that they weren't still able to have some sort of window onto humanity, and that without even realizing it, their behavior and their patterns of speech would be influenced by current mortals. I think that we're planning, Kira and I, are planning on having this take place actually about 10 or 20 years in the future. So we were trying to bring, when Zeus is speaking in verse, that's sort of a throw back to his great grand, delicate way of speaking when he was an all-powerful Zeus. And then they fall into a more contemporary language because in spite of themselves, they have been influenced by humans throughout the centuries and the millennia that they have lived. So I wanted to give that mix. And also the fact that they are basically in quarantine, kind of the way we are, is they are driving each other a little bit crazy. And everyone else has disappeared. All the other gods have been forgotten by mortal man, except for Zeus and Hera. And they're just the two of them in that virtual Mount Olympus kind of driving each other crazy. So that was sort of the concept of the scene, this first opening scene. Well, it's very powerful. And I love the rhyme. I wish we could bring it back into today's world also, you know, on a day-to-day basis, doing the groceries and just traveling again when we will be able to do that after we find a solution to this situation we're living in. And yes, as I was saying at the very beginning, all the topics from the Double Eye Studio seem so timely. And I, this time, experiencing this performance, I felt like Hera was almost our Pandora, unveiling all the evils that have happened in this world, but giving us hope thanks to your collective effort. And I wanted to know from you, Akira, how do, because I saw an evolution in your works for the years, how do you also intertwine the theme of gender politics? Because obviously here we see the husband and wife and Pandora, this sort of love triangle. And of course, I know it's not to resonate strongly with you, considering you're a female direct navigating this new medium. And there aren't as many female directives in virtual reality. So how do you try to channel also this topic in a balanced and appropriate and not preachy way within your storytelling that obviously is universal and embraces other themes as well? I think we're at such an interesting place in history where we are acknowledging that we have not had as many stories told by women and about women. And that's something also that felt really important to Alyssa and I, that we have a female protagonist who we haven't seen yet. We're keeping her a secret right now. But obviously you know that the show will be very much about her. And she is a strong, complex woman. She's a smart woman. And you know, that's, it's been interesting to be brainstorming about her. And as Alyssa has been digging through research and sharing all these like tidbits, you know, she'll come across these great little Greek moments. And we're sort of going through this conquest and just going like, oh my gosh, this is luck with everyone. So really, what Hera has had to put up with over all these years is really fascinating. And to get to see her kind of flex her, her muscles as a goddess. And the stories that she has lived through that are with us, you know, that have been written down that, you know, all these really fun stories of Hera. And of course, you know, there are variations on these things that were told by different writers. And something that we've also learned is, you know, Pandora really was given a jar. Maybe Alyssa wants to speak to that for a moment. Yeah, that is one of the things that really fascinated us about Pandora is that basically her story was rewritten by men. And at the beginning, she had this huge jar and in the jar were all the good things that were meant to be given to mankind. She was sort of a nature, a mother goddess who accompanied souls when they died into the heavens. And she would send them with these jars full of all goods. And somehow in that first official writing down of her myth way back when, it was transformed into a jar of evils that she opened. And then even later on, it was transformed actually by a Christian priest during a sermon into a small box that she opened. And so all of a sudden it became this small portable object and a woman brought all of the evils to the earth when actually originally a woman brought all that was good to the earth. So that's that's one of the things that we'd like to exploring this is, what do you do when your story has been rewritten by other people? How do you take control of that story and bring it back to the essence of what you want your story to be? So we hope, which is our second theme, that we'll be able to make that clear and have people think about how can they take control of their stories? How can they build hope into their lives and create their own stories that they're living? Yeah, indeed. And I think you said something very important about how she was being accused because there's always this human tendency of trying to fix the blame, which is the big feeding of Pandora as well. And we're also experiencing it nowadays and trying to shame a population or someone specific to the horrors that we're living in. So I must, I'm very grateful, I believe also on behalf of all the audience that has been following you for bringing to us all of these very timely topics and of course, thank you to the Culture Hub and the MAMAs for hosting us and giving us a space in this digital, forced digital lockdown. So thank you very much for the great conversation. It's always inspirational to chat with you and I'll hand over to the Culture Hub team. Actually, I think they are handing it back and they've asked me to close out. So, I'll close this conversation. Thank you, Chiara, for joining us all the way from Milan and Italy. And again, our hearts from the US go out to all of you in Italy and we're all going through this together. And we will keep building a new world and maybe some of you will come fly with us. And we will be back at 6 p.m. Eastern time. So for those of you on the West Coast who are maybe just waking up from a long brunch, you can find us. For those of you in Italy or Europe that might be night owls, you can join us really late. And for those of you in New York, hopefully we will catch you at the right time. And we look forward to seeing you all back here. And you can be catching his live stream on the Culture Hub, Facebook page, on the Culture Hub Watch page, on the Double Eye Facebook page. And though I believe some people have mentioned there have been a couple of glitches, I've been getting some messages and hopefully that will all be resolved and we'll be back here ever stronger with new ideas and new innovations. Okay. Bye guys. Bye. Bye.