The script for an immersive performance can be based not only on a classic piece, but also, for example, the mission and corporate values of the company. And relatively recently, we went on an experiment with one HR community. We took a shopping center in Moscow, where there is a theater stage. We invited 40 people with an HR background and made a 3-hour event that immersed the participants in reflection about their work and experience.
We are VOZDUKH Center. We have a physical theater troupe, directors, performers. As well as business coaches and producers. For 4 years we have implemented open immersive performances in 13 countries.
HR Community - HR DOME. Almost 8000 professionals from different fields who exchange insights and ideas, new approaches and issues arising in the HR sphere.
Together we have created a business performance “LIFE-WORK. WORK-LIFE ", which told about the work and life of HR-s. Trading rooms have become a lively platform for performers. Thus, performers appeared among buyers and sellers, who played stories told to viewers by the guide through headphones. The stories, like the people themselves, were different: for some it was a race to fulfill the company's plan, for some it was a solo, sad dance of a single HR, for someone there was a well-coordinated team dance, where complete mutual understanding reigns.
On the stage itself, performers played stories that were improvised by the audience. Russian tango with head-piercing of walls, oriental dances, a gypsy girl with an exit, painful ballet - this is how the HRs saw their work and asked the performers to play and dance these stories.
The performance in the auditorium was attended by 40 representatives of HR from different companies: Tinkoff, Svyaznoy, Burger King, DeliveringHappiness, Hoff, Odgers Berndtson, PIK group. The performance was organized in partnership with HRiDome and the Mosaic shopping center.
Video is in Russian
Anastasia Khrisanfova, Head of HR Dome
I met the guys from VOZDUKH Center when I was studying the question: how immersive technologies can be used in business. I knew that they were used in personal development and in the creative sphere, but the business sphere aroused my doubts and interest at the same time.
As the boundaries are blurring now, we are less and less dividing ourselves into who we are at work and who we are outside of work, so the experience of personal development is increasingly used to achieve work tasks. I began to dig how all this can be connected.
With the guys from VOZDUKH Center everything worked out right away and grew together. I did not set any tasks for them, I did not write any briefs on interaction with the HR audience. The only thing - she asked that all this go as safely as possible. Because when we are faced with something new and transformative, it is important that it does not frighten people - it does not push them to close instead of opening.
I am currently working on the topic: "Why do you live this path", "Why do you come to the profession, and how it is transformed under the influence of various external factors", "How and where to move on." The guys from VOZDUKH talked about various cases - how performances can be applied within a company, about meanings and values - about how this allows events to give an emotional coloring. We often focus on content. We want to share information, knowledge, technologies, skills, while forgetting that emotional attitudes and living give everything a strong motivating effect. We only become immersed in the process when we see important things for us. Business performance is a very cool format!
I am delighted with the guys and the whole team who show such a deep level of immersion in the audience. She even asked the guys: "How do they get out of this later?"
During the performance, I looked at people who were telling their stories, and it was clear that at that moment they had a storm of emotions and experiences. That is, this is an amazing thing: first you hear the story from the audience, then you see how it is embodied on the stage and live it emotionally.
Among the stories told, the story of a young man who told about the crossroads was also close to me, and, of course, the story of the arbiter of destinies was also close to me, since being in a leadership position, you have a large number of tools to influence people.
It is interesting that among the HR specialists who were at the performance, such internal slang was born - for example, "a gypsy with an exit." That is, imagery has appeared to describe certain processes.
As for the structure, the first block before the performance, when we walked around the mall, caused me concern. But in reality it was a deep dive. The guide led us through the sales areas, and we listened to his story through headphones and responded to his questions and suggestions. The performance itself made a strong impression. Many of my colleagues later said that they would like to tell and live their story anew.
Olga Sanachina, director of Business performance
Now there is so much information and different ways of influencing. Only you can know all the rules of spiritual seekers or business gurus, but their experience may not work with you, since it remains at the level of mental perception without connecting with emotional experiences.
There are many professionals and gurus who cannot teach because they lived in completely different circumstances, times and conditions. Their experiences may simply not apply to your context. It is important for a person to connect exactly his own resource - experience, opportunities, reflection, experiences - and in the end, come to his personal conclusions, which give him an incentive to change.
For different types of tasks, we can have different performances with varying degrees of involvement and intensity. If we are talking about the performance for HR specialists “LIFE-WORK. WORK-LIFE ”, then in the first part of the performance, the participants were asked not only to become a spectator, but also to make a journey through space themselves. With each viewer there was a dialogue, immersing them in memories and prompting them to solve various issues.
For example, the participants told me later that it was powerful for them to be on the balcony, look back at their lives and analyze their experiences.
The participants listened to the text through headphones, which immediately captivated the person - this is how the conductor suggested choosing a sports track and thinking about who he looks like in his career run. We immediately proposed to transfer the experience of observation to the level of action.
In the second part (the performance itself), we helped the person to get involved in the process by telling his story, so that later the performers would dance it. When a person tells his story, he then has a strong identification with the performer on stage, who lives and dances his story.
We create an experience for a person in which he begins to look at his own work in a different way. At the level of the director's concept, we are looking for: how to reveal this task, how to lead to a situation in which something will happen.
Egor Utkin, co-founder of VOZDUKH Center
The world is changing. Now there is a focus on roles: employees and clients, but you need to be person-oriented. Why do people crave art, because art is about a Human.
When you go to an exhibition or theater, you go as a person, not a working unit.
Art is the tool that allows businesses to work with new generations and new demands.
Requests for our business performances mainly come from such proactive, advanced companies that are ready for unusual solutions to their problems.
For example, we are now working closely on the topic of customer focus. When we do not just do some action, but focus on the thoughts and emotions of the employee regarding this topic. That is, we do a staged immersion in the right situation.
We worked with various partners, with Leroy Merlin, Sberbank Insurance, the Russian Economy Fund, the Moscow City Department of Culture, as well as various museums and organizations.
In addition, we do not do purely business orders. Any of our business performances are in collaboration with the company. We and our performers go on an internship at the company in order to feel the role of a person from the inside.
If we talk about qualitative and quantitative indicators, then everything depends on the business performance. For example, after one performance, the NPS of the initiative reached 83%. And in another, the customer loyalty indicator has increased by one and a half times and continues to hold.
Immersion formats can be very different. It can be just a performance, a workshop, a program from 1 to 3 days, or a module that lasts for months.
Immersiveness is of increased interest, because the person is considered the most important now - he becomes open to experiments and partnerships.
In order for a person to have a holistic connection and immersion, it is important to create for him such conditions and context on a particular topic so that he perceives this experience at different levels: intellectual, sensual and physical. Through Business Performance, we create this experience.
