Digital HotSpot: virtual agencies in online performer training

Abstract

In February 2020, while in lockdown, Edinburgh-based performance laboratory Organic Theatre embarked on a digital shift of their live performance processes halted by the Covid-19 pandemic through a series of explorative sessions experimenting with ensemble training on the Zoom platform. These digital encounters between remote performers from different backgrounds morphed into an open digital incubator researching how the technology itself could become an agential stimulus to continue training and practicing in a situation of confinement and isolation.

From there, Digital HotSpot was created and is still evolving as a performance research collective working remotely to explore the potential of online training and practice, as well as the soft boundaries between performance, space and spectatorship on digital. Embracing technology and hybrid interactions, Digital HotSpot sessions invite performers to react to the initial sense of disempowerment induced by physical distance, and virtually connect by experimenting with their digital performance presence in an online studio environment. While testing the possibilities of the online space to increase the agential elements of performer training, Digital Hotspot participants are enabled by the technology and hybrid working conditions to find unpredictable working strategies, establishing collective agency through their shared attempts to understand how to communicate somatic practice through screen technology.

This visual essay aims to analyse the extensive audio-visual Zoom documentation of Digital HotSpot sessions, following its developments through various stages of the pandemic and beyond, alongside the discussions and brainstorming by participants around their experience of self-determination through online training. While the initial stages of the pandemic-driven experimentation provided a fertile playground for emerging ideas of how to embrace the digital in our training practices, the focus of the sessions has now shifted towards building a professional toolkit for performers who wish to communicate and work together creatively through digital platforms.

© 2023 Digital HotSpot.