Lucid Possession created by Toni Dove

Musicians, a video DJ, and stage-controlled robotic screens combine to present a contemporary ghost story – a poetic musing on managing the mass of online information ”noise.” The audience is drawn into a world in which video characters come to life: the wave of a hand moves a video body, and video characters lip synch live to a singer. The players onstage collectively perform the movie, which spills off the dynamic, dimensional screens onto the stage. The result is like a complex three-dimensional, automated video pop-up book, and as characters are brought to life through motion, voice, and robotics, the boundaries of the real and virtual are blurred. In this live mix cinema story, Bean is a young artist who designs virtual personalities and is plagued by ghosts. Her mind is like a live Twitter feed that “picks up people” but without the technology. She creates an Avatar, an exaggerated alter ego that goes viral on the Internet and makes her a minor celebrity. People stop her on the street. They want something, and she isn’t sure what it is. Anxiety exponentially increases her paranormal sensitivities, and a ghost from the past emerges from the noise, blinding her as she sees through its eyes into another time. Are ghosts trying to tell her something? With the help of her Avatar and her own private detective bot she’ll sort things out – a schizoid trio navigating between layers of the real and the virtual.

This program is co-presented by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech, Department of Theatre, and School of Performing Arts and Cinema.