University theatre students took a 10-foot-tall aluminum soccer ball-like structure and massive aerial performance silks to Edinburgh, Scotland, this summerfor the largest arts festival in the world: the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The students performed their production of ORIGIN, a physical theater production, amid more than 3,000 other plays spanning nearly the entire month of August.
According to the play’s website, ORIGIN is an allegorical production about a fictional species on a far away planet. The story draws inspiration from “string theory, cell biology, evolution and cultural myths.”
Director and associate theatre professor Nick Erickson said students received three hours of course credit for their roles in the production, but were required to see other shows to get the full six hours of credit. The trip was funded by the program fee, with students staying in University of Edinburgh dorms.
Erickson said ORIGIN came from a grant co-written by recent University graduate and teaching assistant Mark Gibson. According to the production’s website, the soccer ball structure, called a truncated icosahedron, is based on a naturally occurring carbon C60 fullerene molecule, also known as a buckyball, detected in deep space.
The structure is made of hundreds of interlocking aluminum pieces and required five checked-luggage bags to transport to Scotland.
Erickson said the show is based in physical theater, where performers use their bodies as the primary means of communicating with the audience; combining aerial and grounded movement.
The structure is essential to the theme of rebirth in the play, Gibson said. At the beginning, characters are born in the structure. They leave the structure during the play but eventually return, showing the cyclical nature of life.
Edinburgh, which Erickson said triples in population during the festival, was alive with activity. Street performers worked in between shows to keep crowds mystified. Gibson joined in for a large group of attendees.
“I taught myself how to breathe fire,” he said. “I’d never done it for a crowd like that for money before.”
Erickson recalled one show on a moving double decker bus with three women from New Zealand who would encourage audience members sitting in the seats to put on their makeup while the bus went around Edinburgh. Other shows featured performers from places as diverse as Samoa, Macau and Wales.
During the trip, students made valuable connections with a Cirque du Soleil representative and Fest Magazine reviewer in attendance at ORIGIN’s closing show. Students were also required to interview an international performer as one of their assignments.
Gibson said his favorite part of the trip was connecting with fellow artists and performers on both a personal and professional level.
“I’m auditioning for Cirque du Soleil next week,” Gibson said.
Erickson said he’d love to continue developing the show to bring physical theater to other schools and elsewhere.
Angola State Penitentiary, retirement homes and cancer wards are just a few of the places he thinks would benefit from the unique production.
“Experiences are limited with typical plays and musicals,” Erickson said. “I want to bring new views and cultures to people.”
A central theme of the play is continuity and development, Gibson said, so the natural next move is to bring the production to other schools.
“The dream is to collaborate on the production with other students,” he said. “To make it new.”

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Zoe Geauthreaux

Teaching assistant Mark Gibson poses inside of the aluminum structure built for ORIGIN, a production presented by LSU Theatre.