Artemis Is Burning: Immersive Workshop Series

Immersive theater practitioners Ashley Brett Chipman, Kelly Bartnik and Hope Youngblood Heck lead a two-day exploration of worldbuilding, movement and audience experience at The Bass in Miami Beach. Presented by Juggerknot Theatre Company, the workshop series takes place Saturday, September 5 and Sunday, September 6, drawing on the trio’s work with Artemis Is Burning and its acclaimed immersive production The Death of Rasputin. The weekend combines a free public case study with three hands-on courses examining how immersive performances are conceived, staged and structured.

Chipman, creator and co-director of The Death of Rasputin, brings a background in film, dance and installation art, including more than a decade in set decoration for film and television. Youngblood Heck spent more than a decade in the directing leadership of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, including as resident director of its Shanghai production, while Bartnik was an original performer in the Boston and New York productions of Sleep No More and has directed and choreographed immersive projects internationally.

The weekend opens Saturday morning with the free panel The Making of Death of Rasputin, tracing the production from initial concept through worldbuilding, movement, casting and design. Chipman then leads a workshop on creating a visual and sensory “world bible.” Sunday continues with Bartnik’s Narrative Movement course, focused on translating text into physical storytelling, followed by Youngblood Heck’s Invisible Architecture of Immersive Design, examining the rules, audience roles and systems that turn individual scenes into a cohesive experiential world.

The free panel is open to the public. The complete three-course workshop series costs $65 and has limited capacity.