Modern Dream Factory 🏭 — Immersive Community Theatre
The Invitation
The year is 207x and the Traditional Dream Factory has evolved through its regenerative cycle — tradition has been replaced by modernism. Beyond the lands of the Factory, the power of dreams is dwindling, and personal and collective dreams are dying. In a world that revolves around productivity, and resembles a factory, imagination disappears and life loses its colour.
Each year, dream stewards who travel through different stories return home to recharge and reconnect with their sacred power: dreaming.
We are these dream stewards. We translate dreams from humans and nature, providing support where needed, preserving the endangered art of dreaming.
Experience Elements
⛅ 3-Day Dream Theatre: Create and embody your personal dream-archetype through interactive play and collective storytelling
🌱 Land-Based Experience Design : explore how to ground your personal dreams within a regenerative community project
🎭 Play as you are: No prev. theatre experience required. The event is designed around authentic, playful improvisation.
💕 Immersive Co-Creation: Use immersive theatre to develop and shape the community's evolving story
🥗 Soulfood: Eat locally with a private chef. Immersive dining experience incl.
About the Play
The Modern Dream Factory was a 3-day immersive theatre experience in collaboration with the Traditional Dream Factory in Alentejo, Portugal. A group of 20 participants brought their dreams and transformed them through theatrical play, while rooting them within the community and the land project that we were hosted by.
The Story followed an open storyline that we all read together as a “script”, followed by a dining experience. With a fresh start into the day, we build our dream-archetype, walking around the land to explore how the land inspires us to play.
Participants formed groups to collaborate on creating a performance, planting their dream performance in a select place on the land. The finale was an immersive walk-through, visiting all the different dream performances within our characters.
Dream Archetypes — character inspirations
☔️ The Rainmaker: Originally from a world of constant storms, they understand the beauty and power of water. They nourish others by providing this vital element. You are water, you carry water, you ritualize it and remind us that we are water, that life is water, that without water, we would not exist.
🐑 The Shepherd is the protector of lost dreams, who guides them back to their dreamers or finds them new homes. They ask: How can I balance the act of nurturing dreams without becoming overly attached?
🐺 The Wolf in Disguise often challenges others' dreams. They believe in the survival of the fittest dream, and are cunning, observant, challenging, and adaptive. They ask: How can I find balance between skepticism and acceptance? When do I challenge and when do I support?
🚶♂️ The Wanderer is always seeking and has travelled through many dreams, not quite settling into any. Their journey is one of self-discovery and understanding. They ask: How do I find contentment in one dream, or realize that perhaps the journey itself is the dream?
👵 The Elder is a guardian of old rituals and traditions. they believe in the power of the past to inform the future. They are often in awe of ancient dreams, are well-versed in ritualistic practices to channel and manifest dreams, but can sometimes be resistant to new radical ideas. They are respectful, nostalgic, wise, and occasionally stubborn. They ask: How can I embrace change while maintaining the sanctity of tradition?
Testimonials
I usually have to fake an illness to get out of improv situations. I didn’t have to this time and felt very safe throughout. Beautifully hosted. -Fiona
I found myself being surprisingly confident. This was transformational. -Marek
I used to be optimistic, and lost that sense in myself. The experience allowed me to reconnect to that part myself, all while having fun. -Jonas
I noticed how close I am to already living my dream. -Ismael
Learnings & Experience
Opening the Stage. The Play was performed in a Community Space in Portugal. A lot of Community Projects are rooted within local cultures but often create their own ecosytem of participants. For future iterations, multi-day community peformances have to follow the Open The Stage format, where the participants are challenged to involve or play in public; even through language barriers.
Shared Language: Initially developed as a concept of pop-up culture during The Hive, for this iteration the Shared Language elements were perceived as too much/complex. Have 2-3 key cultural elements that we develop together, such as Hello & expressing love and “travel safely!
Shared Worldbuilding. Key elements of Humans at Play experiences are interactivity & improvisation. This allows for freedom of expression, teaches creative agency as well as social adaptability.
Building character vs. playing as you are. Theatric experiences performed of stage play within the fine line of authenticity and façade. My Wish for these experiences is to find the play that helps people get up out of Their own story while honoring the self I Believe we are multitudes, and the theater helps us stretch our imagination of who we believe we are a fun way. To be continued.
Just For You. humans like to feel special, Having a spotlight experience or experience where you are the only one having it makes an experience, unique and memorable. Here We used the spotlight giving people an opportunity to perform in the opening. We also reintegrated the dreams that they had into the open improv.
Host your Community Theatre
If you are part of a tribe or community that would like to explore theatrical play to build stories and connections between humans, the land and history of your place, send me an e-mail to kuba@humanatplay.com ! I am excited to bring this open format to more places around the world.