Unwired Dance Theatre's Clemence Debaig dancing in OnBoardXR

A first look at the latest international collaborations to educate and accelerate live performing artists in the metaverse.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, February 24, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The upcoming season of OnBoardXR will premiere March 9th at Mozilla Festival as part of its Digitizing Cultures & Languages Space. MozFest is known as the premiere gathering for activists in diverse global movements fighting for a more humane digital world and a perfect “stage” for the OnBoardXR accelerator to empower any live performer to try virtual reality.

Named after the process of literally “onboarding” the next generation of talent and audiences, OnBoardXR is designed to help artists and technologists learn and capitalize on strategies, tools and techniques to quickly build and scale their professional practice in the 3D immersive web, colloquially referred to as “the metaverse.”

OnBoardXR’s 4th Season will world-premiere six live performances in extended reality (XR) at Mozilla Festival 2022, including Unwired Dance Theatre’s motion capture dance between two dancers in different countries, a live musical number from Non-Player Character, virtual shadow puppets, a beat cabaret from Ari Tarr, Dasha Kittredge and Avin Shah, Nelly Canales’ solo show, Mime Nelly Lewis, and live action role play in virtual reality by Tomoka Takahashi, Nola Latty, Thomas Wager, Jason Wang, Daniela Goytizolo and Dylin Taylor. The show is stage managed by OnBoardXR’s chief technologist Michael Morran.

The OnBoardXR presentation is playfully titled “Port of Registry” as a nod to the team’s first showcase in October 2020 using Mozilla’s social VR platform, Hubs. Their first play, Jettison, featured three live actors appearing in the same virtual reality scene, performing from different cities as both virtual avatars and live video. The play was a finalist for the Producer Guild of America’s Innovation Award and was the subject of a documentary.

Ticket sales and fiscal sponsorship offer an immediate path to monetization for participants. Meanwhile, several OnBoardXR prototypes have successfully secured grants, production or venue placement for the original storytelling content and some participants have successfully entered licensing or staffing agreements for underlying technology they developed during OnBoardXR.

“A tiny fringe-festival…in my headset” -Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor for No Proscenium

This season’s showcase is sponsored by Active Replica and produced by Los Angeles based Jigsaw Ensemble to identify, mentor and showcase groundbreaking innovations in live, responsive storytelling content and the underlying technology tools that bring these stories to life. Last year, OnBoardXR presented over a dozen live world-premiere prototypes, featuring and monetizing the work of over 35 international collaborators and shared work at ACM-SIGGRAPH, PXR, FIVARS and The Producers Guild of America Innovation Awards. Last month, OnBoardXR produced a live halftime show in the metaverse for The 2nd Annual Poly Awards ceremony.

The Artistic Director of OnBoardXR, Brendan Bradley, says their “revue-style show offers a first-look at a variety of cutting edge prototypes for 3D virtual experiences that merge lean-back entertainment (live theater and streaming) with interactive entertainment (games and social VR).” Bradley emphasizes that using “browser-based virtual reality” allows them to create and customize a “global, device-agnostic sandbox for building storytelling talent and tools for the metaverse” which empowers anyone to bring their creative practice into the immersive web.

Over 30% of 2021 attendees reported OnBoardXR as their first virtual reality or live virtual reality experience, with over 41% attending on a standalone VR headset (like the Oculus/Meta Quest) while others joined from desktop computers, laptops and even mobile devices and tablets. “It’s Brendan Bradley and team’s punk rock ethos crossed with the freedom of experimentation in a new medium that keeps the mini-festival fresh and exciting,” reports No Proscenium’s Kathryn Yu ”I think of OnBoardXR as a tiny fringe festival, but available in my headset. And like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

“Building Storytelling Talent and Tools for the Metaverse” – Brendan Bradley, Artistic Director of OnBoardXR

As artists look to take advantage of virtual worlds and the storytelling opportunities they present, OnBoardXR is the bridge for new voices and audiences to enter the metaverse with community support to build a show, a tool, a platform, an audience, and a business in the virtual world.

OnBoardXR has an established history of scouting and sourcing the most ambitious and exciting talent integrating live performance and extended reality technologies. Their seasonal sandbox develops talent and prototypes to push boundaries while fostering a community of knowledge and resource sharing to connect artists, technology, sponsors, and venues for meaningful partnerships.

Mozilla Festival will run March 7-11 online with OnBoardXR performances throughout the week. Tickets at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/onboardxr-4-port-of-registry-tickets-272469743337?aff=aquatik

Brendan Bradley
theaterfestival.online
info@jigsawensemble.com

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