Challenging the laws of the land, this journey through time, space, and culture invites you to unleash your imagination and explore the lush landscape of the Deering Estate. You’ll be transported from the present to an imagined past in a provocative excavation of the Floridian landscape through fragmentary encounters with extraordinary characters.
A VR performance
at the Deering Estate
How to view this 360º performance
To view the experience, you will need to download the WondaVR app onto your phone:
About the Show
The Deering Estate is brought to life through a site-responsive nomadic performance in which a series of characters are encountered. Originally performed in the dark, over four nights in April 2017, the experience invited the audience to become co-creators in a narrative that gradually revealed its themes of contested lands, social classes, cultures and property.About the Experience
Explore the spaces of the Deering Estate and discover a host of extraordinary characters and their connection to the land. Piece together these fragmentary encounters to shed light on both past and present; the personal and the political - and see how this estate can be seen to represent a microcosm of Florida, a nation state and allows us to reflect on our own state and place in the world.
Definition of ESTATE
1
:state, a period or condition of life
2
:social standing or rank especially of a high order
3
:a social or political class
4 a
:the degree, quality, nature, and extent of one's interest in land or other property
b
:possessions, property; especially : a person's property in land and tenements a man of small estate
c
: the assets and liabilities left by a person at death
5
:farm, plantation
Credits
The performance ESTATE was originally staged over four nights in April 2017 and emerged as a result of an extraordinary creative collaboration between University of Miami and Miami-Dade County Cultural Affairs, South Florida Theatre League and The Deering Estate.
In the fall of 2016 a group of playwrights taking part in the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs’ Playwright Development Program with the South Florida Theatre League began working under the guidance of Kenny Finkle and Michael Yawney to take inspiration from the Deering Estate site in which they were based.
Through the involvement of Stephen Di Benedetto and the University of Miami Theatre Arts Department and an international collaboration with Scott Palmer from the University of Leeds (UK), an ‘immersive’, site-specific promenade performance emerged that drew inspiration from the historic landscape, buildings and histories of the place and the peoples who have inhabited the site.
This 360 VR Experience was created as an experiment with postgraduate students in the interactive media program at University of Miami under the guidance of Kim Grinfeder and is part of ongoing research into the design and nature of audience experience.
Cast (in order of appearance)
- Guide: Royce Osceola
- Bride: Kelly Murphy
- Older Sister: Rachel Bonet
- Younger Sister: Carlyn Rosario
- Anthropologist: Adam Sticca
- Bootlegger: Annie Zigman
- Third Sister: Rikkiya Brathwaite
- Stateswoman: Jennifer A Burke
Creative Team
- Playwrights: Stephanie Ansin, Hannah Benitez, Vanessa Garcia, William Hector
- Director/Scenographer: Scott Palmer
- Associate Director: Alexander Palmer
- Stage Manager: Stephanie Debrecht
- PDP Dramaturg: Michael Yawney
- PDP Master Playwright: Kenny Finkle
- Production Manager: Pablo A Souki
- ASM: Narissa Agustin
- Studio Coordinator: Christopher Brian
- Line Producer: Isabella Lisboa
- University of Miami Theatre Arts Department Chair: Stephen Di Benedetto
- Deering Estate Cultural Arts Curator: Kim Yantis-Strycharski
- Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs: Adriana Perez
- South Florida Theatre League: Andie Arthur
360º Video Production Team
- Interactive Producers: Hyan De Freitas, Rafael Baldwin
- Production: Hyan De Freitas, Lorenzo Ponce De Leon, Rafael Baldwin, Armando Rubii III, Christopher Roy
- Post Production: Russ Darrow, Lorenzo Ponce De Leon, Austen Eagleson
- Web Designer: Cibonay Dames
- University of Miami Interactive Media Program Director: Kim Grinfeder
