On the evening of Sunday, March 12, up to 40 Fringe Festival-goers will assemble in the gravel carpark opposite Dunedin’s Leviathan Hotel. Where they will be taken, and what will happen to them during the ensuing two hours, is a secret, Emily Berryman says.
Ms Berryman is one of three event choreographers in their twenties who are staging The Odeon: Drive In Cinema. She describes their multimedia event as a "one-night-only cinematic resurrection featuring a limousine, live sound and a trans-national film collaboration".
Transported by limousine to a former cinema, participants will be confronted by some of the key trappings of a gala event, but in an unusual setting. They will also be told what to do and when.
"Ushers dressed in black and white will direct the audience from the moment they step out of the limousine," Ms Mackenzie says.
"In part, it’s about repurposing unfamiliar, historic spaces and seeing what other life we can bring to it. But also, there’s the idea that today it is so easy to watch something and then flick to something else and not really fully engage. Normally, the audience has control over their experience and can easily just switch off.
"We want to give the audience this particular experience. But to do that we have to control every element of it."
The venue was once a fixture in Dunedin’s then larger cinema scene, and sported its own small indoor garden. During its 80-odd years in business, it went by four names, including The Odeon. Bought by a real estate company several years ago, the inner-city building was gutted and turned into a covered carpark.
Getting permission to use the building was not straightforward. But once obtained, the owners have been "very supportive".
Remnants of the venue’s earlier purpose are still evident inside the voluminous space: the silhouette of two levels of sloping theatre seating, some decorative wall features and an enormous arched brick wall where a screen once hung.
On the evening, there will be theatre-style seating, a bar and live music drifting into the performance space from out of view.The aim is to make the participants feel like they have stepped into a movie within a movie.
"We want it to be a deeply cinematic experience," Ms Berryman says.
"The whole styling of the event ... speaks of the traditional grandeur of cinema, but it will be in this interesting space that is now a carpark and only has echoes of that former glamour."
A feeling of glamour, wealth and grandeur will be juxtaposed with elements that speak of decay and decline.
Being treated like film stars but then being dropped at a derelict theatre speaks to the current culture of extremes, Ms Mackenzie says.
"It’s commenting on the perplexing nature of society at the moment, where things like Donald Trump can happen."
An experimental film will screen during the event. The film is a collaboration using local and international footage created by Ms Berryman, Ms Mackenzie and former Dunedin artist Ted Whitaker. Mr Whitaker is living in New York.
A recent video project by the two women encouraged the trio to pursue their site-specific, participant-involvement event.
The pair created a music video for Wellington-based group French for Rabbits. It was set in Dunedin’s historic Savoy building and featured 40 volunteer "extras".
"We worked really hard to create the world of the story being told by the video ... And we found that people were really excited by it. It was like, everyone wants this sort of stuff to happen."
As Lysbeth Rose Videos, they have also made music videos for Dunedin musicians Nadia Reid and Kane Strang.
The Odeon: Drive In Cinema is a one-time-only creation for the Fringe Festival. In an age in which every moment, no matter how trivial, is immortalised online forever, it seems the new way to give import to something is to let it vanish without trace except in the memories of those who experienced it.
"We like the fact that it is never going to happen again, the ephemeral nature of it. We’re not trying to commercialise it or anything; we just want to give people the experience."
The show
• The Odeon: Drive In Cinema is on Sunday, March 12 at 7pm as part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival.
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Comments
The Leviathan is a beached behemoth of an hotel. Ley lines run across the carpark up the hill to First Church, then to Bell Hill, along Moray to the Synagogue. But, enough of Metaphysical Dunedin.
This is a bold, random, Dadaist concept. I would caution against Wellington fringe elements, such as shrieking demi mondaine leaping from alleys onto passers by, and flash mob fights that just alarm punters.
The Rialto still contains St James structures: the awkward steps you stumbled over on the way to the Cloaks in the 60s, and something like old walkways to former auditoria can be seen.