Schwarzman Session: Why Here, Why Now?: Futures in Immersive Performance

Schwarzman Sessions are peer-led gatherings where conversations generate collaborations and move ideas into action. Because seats are limited, registrants will be automatically placed on the waitlist and will be notified via email if they are selected to participate. 

Engage in dialogue with Stephanie Batten Bland and Rob Laqui—leading creators of immersive experiences—on the future of the immersive performance genre,  its key elements, and pitfalls. Lunch will be provided courtesy of the Schwarzman Center. We provide the table. You bring the conversation!

In both commercial and not-for-profit performance, the Immersive—or Proximity—experience is here. As the industry grows, questions of who gets to create these experiences, who performs them, and who gets to experience them, are fundamental. Join Stephanie Batten Bland and creative producer Rob Laqui in a conversation that uses the current immersive experience Life and Trust, among others, as a case study for where immersive experiences are headed.

About the Lead Sessionists

Stehpanie Batten Bland

Stefanie Batten Bland, global maker, and 2023 Dance Magazine Cover Artist, is a captivating figure straddling the artistic scenes of NYC and France. Born to a jazz composer/producer father and a writer mother, she was raised in SoHo when it was led by artists. Batten Bland’s work profoundly explores contemporary and historical cultural symbolism, cultural identifiers, and their influence on our global human relationships.

Batten Bland danced for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Lar Lubovitch, Tanztheater Wüppertal Pina Bausch, PunchDrunk's Sleep No More, Hungarian choreographer Pal Frenák, Jérome Savary at the Paris Opéra Comique and creator Georges Mombôye of the Côte d’Ivoire. Batten Bland established Company SBB in France in 2008 and moved it to New York in 2012. 

Known for her unique visual and movement aesthetic in proximity performance, Batten Bland is the Artistic Director of the inaugural 2024 immersive theatre summer intensive CONCRETE. She served as movement director for Eve's Song at The Public Theater, is casting and movement director for Life & Trust, as well as performance and identity liasion for Sleep No More. Company SBB has been presented at BAM Next Wave Festival, Lincoln Center, Bates Dance Festival, Celebrity Series (Boston), Modlin Center for the Arts (Richmond, VA), ADF, The Yard at Martha's Vineyard, Duke Performances, PEAK Performances, La MaMa Experimental Theater and internationally at the Spoleto Festival in Italy, Danse à Lille in France, Festival Onze Bouge, and Tanztendenzen in Germany amongst others.

Batten Bland has created for fashion and lifestyle partners Louis Vuitton, Fleur du Mal, Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermès, and Guerlain. She has produced 14 dance cinema films shown in international festivals. Her 2021 film Kolonial, received thirteen US and international film awards and was nominated for three Bessie Awards. She has been featured in The New York Times, Paper Magazine, The Boston Globe, Dance Magazine, Brooklyn Rail, Marie Claire, and Dance Europe.

She received grants and awards from National Dance Project Production NDP, Creative Capital, NYSCA, Guggenheim Works In Process, Harkness Foundation, a Jerome RobbinsAward, a Bessie Schönberg Fellowship at The Yard, and a Toulmin Creator Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. Batten Bland received her MFA in interdisciplinary arts from Goddard College and is currently an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University's Department of Theatre and Dance.

Rob Laqui

Born and raised in Minnesota, Rob is a NYC based first generation Filipino-American. Youngest of two, his interest in theater, TV and movies fueled his desire to become a performer. Participating mainly in music and theater, Rob went on to study musical theater in college, graduating with a BFA in Musical Theater Performance.

​Immediately after college, Rob joined LaMama E.T.C.'s legendary Great Jones Repertory, under Ellen Stewart and subsequently began the start of over two decades of touring and performing around the world, including six and a half seasons with the internationally acclaimed MOMIX dance company.

​Rob was on the WAR HORSE first national North American tour and was asked to be one of the puppeteers as Joey appearing in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Edinburgh, Scotland. He also had the opportunity to be the Production Spokesperson and Press Rep for the WAR HORSE press tour, representing the show to various tour markets all over the US and Canada.

​He had the privilege to be cast in the critically praised production of HERE LIES LOVE at the Public Theater in NYC and was with Cirque du Soleil as part of the creation cast and Puppet Captain for the world tour of TORUK - THE FIRST FLIGHT, based off of JamesCameron's AVATAR.

Between productions and tours, Rob was with the American Associates of the National Theatre as a Development and Special Events Coordinator, an Associate Producer on the Broadway productions of IS THIS A ROOM and DANA H., the Production Coordinator for NT America, the North American producing office for the National Theatre of Great Britain, and an Associate Producer with Mara Isaacs and her production company, Octopus Theatricals, helping create the HADESTOWN Education Initiative. Rob has also been a director, choreographer, and puppet builder, working with Matt Acheson and Fergus J. Walsh, building puppets for Lincoln Center and Broadway productions.

​Rob received a Tony Award for being on the producing team of the 2022 Tony Award and 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning A STRANGE LOOP. He is now in NYC full time as an Associate Producer for No Guarantees, a Co-Producer with the HADESTOWN National Tour and West End production,  and was recently a Co-Producer with HERE LIES LOVE on Broadway. He is currently a Broadway League Member and Associate Producer on THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA on Broadway. 

​Rob is the Executive Producer, with Andrew Rasmussen, of the independent production company, Cardinal Theatricals, and is a Co-Founder of The Industry Standard Group, a commercial investment and producing group that addresses the lack of representation and diversity in commercial arts and entertainment investing and producing.