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AUDIENCE PERFORMER RELATIONSHIP
How can I challenge the audience/performer relationship?
Can I do this without alienating the audience?
Does this shift the perception of the audience? Can they feel a sense of ownership over a work in which they have participated (in at least some sense)?
What role does the performer play in this relationship dynamic?
INQUIRY
I first came to consider the relationship between the audience and the performers during my Postgraduate Degree in a unit called Transgressive Acts in Art. In this unit we talked about assumed expectations that an audience might have when viewing a work. I mused on ideas of forcing the audience into uncomfortable situations. My intention was to shock the audience. Throughout the first few months of my Masters of Dance Research I began to consider this relationship through a feminist lens.
Feminist scholar Peggy Phelan states: The performer is always in the feminine position in relation to power. That is, women and performers, more often than not, are “scripted” to “sell” or “confess” something to someone who is in the position to buy or forgive. (1988, p. 124)
My inquiry surrunding this power imbalance, questions what I can do as a choreographer to equalise the power between performer and audience. How can I give the audience more ownership of a work? Does this force them to engage differently with a work and therefore force them out of the inherently masculine relationship an audience member has, as suggested by Phelan?