This presentation was delivered on October 21, 2022 at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2022: Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.
Description:
In my research in embodied arts, I’m interested in the constructive relationship between the players’ creative fiction and their lived lives. Through metareflection, our ability to draw connections between reality and fiction while playing, we can create interesting experiences that touch us and affect how we see ourselves and the world. When playing in an educational context, or playing to explore cultural contexts, this interactive aspect of role-playing and life is a significant part of the potential for learning and transformative change. The knowledge and experiences that the players enter the larp with, are crucial to give the player the possibility to infuse the play with fruitful connections. Larping as a gateway to historical and present day communities: Reflections on a player experience. Inspired by the theme of the seminar, I want to explore how a larp experience may impact the players’ connection to historical movements and communities. The larp Just a Little Lovin’ explores real events from queer history. Performance researcher Rebecca Schneider suggests that reperformances of historical events are aimed as much forward as backwards in time. When bringing history to life, information is transferred to today so that it may be remembered tomorrow. Experiences such as Just a Little Lovin’ affect the players’ understanding of queer history as well as how they relate to queer future. With an increased sense of belonging to queer history, the larp becomes a catalyst for many players to seek out their place in present day queer communities. Metareflection can only partly explain how we may extract emotional and intellectual insights during play to carry them with us after the larp. For this presentation, I’d like to further explore how a larp experience may have this ongoing inpact on player identity and community belonging. Please see my article “Metareflection” in “What we do when we play” and my essay “Just a little lovin’ – Living queer history” in “Fearless love anthology” for further reading.
Bio:
Hilda Levin (b. 1987) is a Swedish larper living in Norway. She has a masters in dramaturgy and works with storytelling in theatre for children and youth, and with teaching emerging playwrights. She has previously published her work on metareflection in embodied role-playing, and is interested in the constructive relationship between fiction and real life. She co-organized the cultural and political program of the Oslo Pride in 2018 and 2019.
Click here to read PDF of slides.
***
This seminar is hosted by the Transformative Play Initiative in the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. This seminar is made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF). The Transformative Play Initiative explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
Click here to see the complete program.
Click here to learn more about Transformative Play at Uppsala and join the TPI mailing list.
Click here to learn more about the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design.
Click here to Like the Transformative Play Initiative on Facebook.
Click here to Like the Games and Society Lab on Facebook.
Click here to Subscribe to the Transformative Play Initiative on YouTube.
Graphic Design by Liliia Chorna. Music by Elias Faltin. Video edited by Rezmo (Mohammad Mohammad Rezaie).