FringeNYC Previews

@lice in www.onderland

The show is about identity. It is an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The piece explores the way we choose to present and distinguish ourselves in the ever-changing world and the ways in which that presented identity departs from who we really are. In our version of Alice's story, she falls down the rabbit hole into the Internet. Once in cyberspace, Alice is confronted with fundamental questions about liveness in a virtual world. Where does reality end and virtual reality begin? A video runs throughout the show as she makes her way through a space that includes both live and virtual performers... and some that switch from one to the other. Through Alice's encounters and relations with these characters, we present our understanding of the experience in www.onderland.

The show ultimately addresses the process of discovering who we are in relation to others and in relation to what we would like to be. Alice finds herself in a maze of interactions through which she begins to lose sight of herself as her identity is constantly scrutinized. She is repeatedly asked questions that we are all forced to answer: What are you? "Who are you?" and Where are you going?

We chose to tell Alice's story because she is a character that has special meaning to each of us. She is a person in search of something, though she is not quite sure what, and she bravely explores new territories and attempts to assert her own agency in a world that seems non-sensical and often frightening. We can all relate to that.

Maggie Burrows, choreographer