Open Stage is a larp about queer voices, identities and communities. The game follows the lives of participants of a Queer ‘spoken word workshop’ and their friends for a period of three days.
The game borrows tools from docufiction/etnofiction, where players explore and narrate their own experiences through fictional characters.
Open Stage is part of a series of queerfeminist live action role playing games designed by Myrtti Lehtinen, and funded from Finnish Cultural Foundation. The workshop is realised in collaboriation with Asennekustantamo PESÄ, winner of Finnish Poetry Slam championship 2018 Jonna "Nihkee Akka" Nummela and Tanssiva Karhu 2019 -nominee Nelli Ruotsalainen.
For more detials, please check the Facebook event.
Details:
When: 23.10.2019 - 27.10.2019.
Where: Helsinki, Museum of Impossbile Forms and other spaces
Tickets: pay what you wantinstructions:
The game is in Finnish/English. The characters have the same language skills as their players and we take that into account in content, so that no-one has to play in a language they don't want to.In-game play happens from Thursday to Saturday. There's a (compulsory) briefing and character workshop on Wednesday evening and a (non compusory) debrief-hangout on Sunday.
Players can choose their amount of play-time to some extent: everyone has both pre-set and self made – with the tool the game offers – program, and you can choose the amount of latter. Players whose characters participate in the spoken word workshop need to be able to play thursday and friday afternoons, others can only play in the evenings if they wish.
The game does not include accommodation.
There's room for about 15 players.
Sign in here
We have open spots left. The continued sign in closes 25.8. or when the game gets full.
No need for character choices/preferences at this point.
The game is primarily for participants from sexual and gender minorities and they are favored when dealing out spots. This is purely a question of self-identifying and no-one will estimate are you enough of something (yes you are!). I'm using the word queer because that's the viewpoint I'm coming from, but that does not need to be a word you identify with.
About the design
Open Stage borrows from a toolbox of docufiction/ethnofiction. These terms are used in documentary filmmaking and refer to content where the subjects of the film tell about their own life by creating fictional scenes. There's similar term in written enthology: ethnographic fiction refers to a fictional text a sholar writes uses as a part of their scientific writing. Both views share the idea that fiction can be used to create knowledge or address topics that would otherwise be impossible or diffucult to.
In Open Stage the player explore and narrate their own minority experiences through fictional characters. The characters share the gender and sexual identity of their players so when the game focuses on the queer identies experiences the stories told are ones that players can claim ownwership to. This should also allow for more depth of view.
There are no cishet characters in the game, but there may be room for a small number of cishet players with enough of a questioning/flexible/something identity that exloring ”what if” through a characters would be valid in this context.
The genre or style of the game could be described as entertaining realism: the game's content is made of interesting moments in characters' everyday life, which will be piled into the game's duration without worrying if that's curious or realistic.
Character-builds play with queer archetypes, but with nothing but love we trust players not to use them to laught at anyone, or at theirselves at the most.
Characters are build by combining elements of a players choosing. The elements are pre-written blocks that leave room for the player to flesh out the character. These include things like:
An archetype: art queer, soft queer or riot queer and specialization within these.
One or more in-game group: a band or an activist group for example.
There is a small stand up/spoken word/poetry -workshop wihin the game and show on saturday where participants of the workshop perform their work. There's room for 5-7 characters in the workshop which takes place daytime on thursday and friday. Workshop is meant to be an easy way to try out performing, so players participanting don't need any experience in that either.
You can read more about the actual game contents in this blog post.
M{if} is a safer space. It follows safer space policies to create a welcoming, inclusive, awesome environment.
Events at the Museum of Impossible Forms are completely free and accessible without prior booking.
Museum of Impossible Forms is accessible by lift with thresholds up to 4cm on the way. The toilet has no thresholds but is not spacious enough to meet accessibility standards. The nearest accessible toilet is located at Kontula metro station.