As they walk through "Emphatic Universe," visitors to the Museum of Arts and Design listen to a script voiced by Tisch Drama students at the Atlantic Acting School.
Recently, Tisch Drama students at the Atlantic Acting School gave voice to a new universe. When the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) approached Atlantic administrators, Alison Beatty and Lorielle Mallue, to write and direct the audio drama accompanying Emphatic Universe, the latest immersive gallery show from multidisciplinary artist Saya Woolfalk, they invited students to voice the script.
According to the MAD website, the first retrospective of the artist’s two decades of world-building installations, showcases Woolfalk’s ambitious fictional narrative of an imagined race of women known as “Empathics.” The race has its own visual imagery, vision, and folklore based on art, craft, and storytelling traditions from around the world. In this parable told through garment-based sculptures, video, paintings, works on paper, and performances, cultures mix, clash, and are ultimately transformed through shared understanding.
To hear Drama students, visitors can listen to Utopia Within, an audio drama that takes them through the exhibition. It runs through September.