Research on Experiential

[vegas2]

Posted: 9/11/10 at 4:42pm

Hello,

I am a regular reader of this board, although I’ve never posted. I am also an academic. I am hoping some of you might want to respond to my research request.

I am writing an article on experiential and audience participation theatre, with particular emphasis on one-on-one productions and others that involve small audiences in confined, intimate, or complicated settings -- in other words, situations where an audience member/participant might feel awkward or conspicuous about walking out, or where a performer is particularly exposed or vulnerable to unexpected audience reactions. I am exploring how performers and attendees have been affected by the erasure of the traditional audience/performer boundary.

If you have been a member of the production or creative team involved in such a production, or if you have attended as an audience member, I would appreciate receiving any anecdotal reports you would like to share. I would also be interested in seeing scripts, treatments, production notes, or media reports that might address these situations.

My affiliation is with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. To minimize spam to my university account, I have set up an email account for your responses: [e-mail]. If you contact me there, I can give you more information about the research project, and can also give you my actual university contact information.

If this posting violates any board protocols, I will be happy to amend it.

Thank you in advance!

[emg_sound]

Posted: 9/11/10 at 11:46pm

1: PM Me on this board and we can continue this discussion...

2: I've spent the past three Augusts in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and personally, shows which I gravitate towards are usually experiential by nature. Some examples include Internal by the Belgian Company Ontroerend Goed, which was a twenty five minute speed date/group therapy experience which I had to follow with excessive drinking. Another artist who deals with some fascinating promenade theatre is the Scottish artist David Leddy. And then there are the British masters, Punchdrunk and a new collective coming out of York University called Belt Up... I could go on for a while... Needless to say, many of these experiences are not for the weak hearted, and although fun, they often induce extreme reactions.

3: My third year piece at grad school was a rather extreme production of Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights where we sat the audience in a black paper box in the middle of our space, and the audience was in a completely dark and disorienting environment for the first 35 minutes of the piece and that was only broken when actors would cut a hole in the paper, done in a rather all encompassing manner (the scissors were mic-ed). It was a remarkably challenging project and quite polarizing within our academic community, but it was unforgettable!

Enough of a start?