Playing with intimacy & intensity: an interdisciplinary network for participatory performance practice.
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Department Name: Faculty
Abstract
Performance culture is changing. There is a turn towards playful invitations to intense and intimate encounters, that is proving popular with both artists and audiences. Audiences are being drawn into rich and sometimes risky experiences in the middle of performance, rather than at a safe spectatorial distance, often through structured games or playful provocations. The diverse work that is going on in theatre, live art, dance, gaming and applied arts can be seen as a dynamic but diffuse project of research and development into interaction, involvement and encounter, and into what play and performance can become in contemporary culture. There is a need to make stronger connections between these disciplines, to enhance shared understanding in the sub-disciplines of participatory performance that are emerging in each case, and thus to stimulate new directions of enquiry in practice and theory.
This network brings together those who explicitly and implicitly research playfully intimate and intense participation, involving artists, academics and artist-academics across and between the intersections of art forms and academic disciplines, to stimulate shared insight and highly productive reflection on the artistic potential and ethical complexities of this work. The network proposed is international, with expertise in creating and theorising performance practices across this range of art forms and academic disciplines, with proven ability to achieve high quality and high impact outcomes in writing and performance. These changes to performance culture are happening now, and the growth of participatory performance across international cultural industries shows no sign of abating. The urgency of this research is that interdisciplinary practice-oriented research, involving practitioners and theorists from across intersecting art forms and disciplines with the deeper understanding it will bring, is needed to enhance and drive innovative practical responses to the complex ethical and aesthetic challenges of intimate and intense participation.
This network brings together those who explicitly and implicitly research playfully intimate and intense participation, involving artists, academics and artist-academics across and between the intersections of art forms and academic disciplines, to stimulate shared insight and highly productive reflection on the artistic potential and ethical complexities of this work. The network proposed is international, with expertise in creating and theorising performance practices across this range of art forms and academic disciplines, with proven ability to achieve high quality and high impact outcomes in writing and performance. These changes to performance culture are happening now, and the growth of participatory performance across international cultural industries shows no sign of abating. The urgency of this research is that interdisciplinary practice-oriented research, involving practitioners and theorists from across intersecting art forms and disciplines with the deeper understanding it will bring, is needed to enhance and drive innovative practical responses to the complex ethical and aesthetic challenges of intimate and intense participation.
Planned Impact
Impact is embedded with the involvement of participants from beyond the academy. The lab events will bring together practitioners and practitioner academics with diverse experience and connections, and the concluding conference will gather stakeholders from within and outside the academy, thus the work will directly benefit performance makers, audiences, producers and commissioners. The Steering Group will monitor and advise the network, with support from the non-academic participants, ensuring the research remains relevant to key stakeholders and impact is delivered.
Performance makers
The work of the active practitioners and their respective theatre and performance companies will be enriched by participation in the network. Some - Coney, Lundahl and Seitl and ZU:UK - are established and influential, with a reach that will extend the impact, shaping the work of emergent artists and practices. Others are emergent companies (FANShen) and artists (Silvia Mercuriali, Jamal Harewood), who will develop their influence in turn. Practitioner-researchers (Barton, Stenros, Dinesh, Lopez-Ramos and Barnard) will also develop new and influential practices. All will develop ethical and challenging approaches to play, participation, intimacy and intensity, and change the way they work as a result of their participation in the network. For example, new performance works that exploit this combination, or the refinement of existing projects that put it to work more rigorously or in original ways will be developed. It will lead to collaborations between the participants along with the initiation of new ventures that put participatory performance into new contexts. As Ludahl and Seitl say in their letter of support, they appreciate the opportunity to collaborate and share new ways of working and to draw inspiration from others who have thought deeply about and experimented with these issues. The most immediate short-term impact of the network will be in new and invigorated performances and performance practices.
Producers and commissioners of new work
Producers, commissioners and critics will attend the concluding conference, with the aim of extending understanding of the challenges that participation offers to audiences and to those who help to stage it. The deeper understanding of the interaction between aesthetic, ethical and practical elements of staging participatory performance will allow these stakeholders to make more informed interventions in their roles. For example, they will have better understanding of how ethical dilemmas can be playfully built into participatory practice, rather than eliminated in advance, and how intimacy can encourage atmospheres of risk while remaining safe. Involving performance critics will contribute to public discourses around participatory performance that is mindful of the dynamics between risk and safety, challenge and satisfaction. Thus, in the long term, ambitious work is encouraged, facilitated and staged more successfully.
Audiences
Audiences and the wider community will benefit through enriched performance and game events, and the better support offered to these events through the involvement of stakeholders. As public appetite for participatory performances and gaming experiences with artistic ambitions grows, a rapidly expanding range of practices is on offer, but not all are of high quality or take good care of participants in ethical and practical terms. The cross-fertilisation of practices and ethical approaches will help make these experiences more rewarding, as they become more enjoyable, challenging and safely and ethically delivered. Audiences for participatory practices are often more diverse, including sections of the community under-represented in theatre audiences generally. As participation becomes more aesthetically and ethically ambitious, offering more than spectacle and narcissistic sensation, these audiences will experience more complex cultural experiences.
Performance makers
The work of the active practitioners and their respective theatre and performance companies will be enriched by participation in the network. Some - Coney, Lundahl and Seitl and ZU:UK - are established and influential, with a reach that will extend the impact, shaping the work of emergent artists and practices. Others are emergent companies (FANShen) and artists (Silvia Mercuriali, Jamal Harewood), who will develop their influence in turn. Practitioner-researchers (Barton, Stenros, Dinesh, Lopez-Ramos and Barnard) will also develop new and influential practices. All will develop ethical and challenging approaches to play, participation, intimacy and intensity, and change the way they work as a result of their participation in the network. For example, new performance works that exploit this combination, or the refinement of existing projects that put it to work more rigorously or in original ways will be developed. It will lead to collaborations between the participants along with the initiation of new ventures that put participatory performance into new contexts. As Ludahl and Seitl say in their letter of support, they appreciate the opportunity to collaborate and share new ways of working and to draw inspiration from others who have thought deeply about and experimented with these issues. The most immediate short-term impact of the network will be in new and invigorated performances and performance practices.
Producers and commissioners of new work
Producers, commissioners and critics will attend the concluding conference, with the aim of extending understanding of the challenges that participation offers to audiences and to those who help to stage it. The deeper understanding of the interaction between aesthetic, ethical and practical elements of staging participatory performance will allow these stakeholders to make more informed interventions in their roles. For example, they will have better understanding of how ethical dilemmas can be playfully built into participatory practice, rather than eliminated in advance, and how intimacy can encourage atmospheres of risk while remaining safe. Involving performance critics will contribute to public discourses around participatory performance that is mindful of the dynamics between risk and safety, challenge and satisfaction. Thus, in the long term, ambitious work is encouraged, facilitated and staged more successfully.
Audiences
Audiences and the wider community will benefit through enriched performance and game events, and the better support offered to these events through the involvement of stakeholders. As public appetite for participatory performances and gaming experiences with artistic ambitions grows, a rapidly expanding range of practices is on offer, but not all are of high quality or take good care of participants in ethical and practical terms. The cross-fertilisation of practices and ethical approaches will help make these experiences more rewarding, as they become more enjoyable, challenging and safely and ethically delivered. Audiences for participatory practices are often more diverse, including sections of the community under-represented in theatre audiences generally. As participation becomes more aesthetically and ethically ambitious, offering more than spectacle and narcissistic sensation, these audiences will experience more complex cultural experiences.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Gareth White (Principal Investigator) | |
| Bruce Barton (Co-Investigator) |
| Description | The purpose of the project was to bring together artists, scholars, and artist-scholars working with different forms of participatory performance, and specifically those working with play, intimacy and the intensity of participant experience. The sharing of insights, ambitions and dilemmas among this group at a pair of 'lab' events was an aim in itself, along with sharing insights with a broader group of stakeholders at a symposium event. These events were very successful in themselves and in these terms. As noted elsewhere, the further dissemination of insights is supported by the creation of a website with transcripts of wide-ranging conversations between network members. The network itself continues informally, with a further funded project planned - as noted elsewhere, a bid has been submitted to the Canadian SSHRC for a series of events that continue this work. |
| Exploitation Route | Though modest in scale, this project has only become more timely. As occasions for intimate encounters between people have been restricted in unprecedented ways over the last year, participatory artists - including those in the network - are responding with further innovation. The network's practitioners themselves are creating online-led work informed by their exchange of ideas with each other, and they have generously shared ideas - available on our website - that will help others to respond creatively as we emerge from the current crisis. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy |
| URL | https://www.piinetwork.org |
| Description | The most important aim of the project was to bring professional practitioners, practitioner researchers and conventional researchers together for the exchange of ideas and practice. The social, economic and artistic situation of all of these participants has changed radically since the conclusion of the project - so that the concern with intimacy has become much more urgent. The artistic practice of the network's members now has to find new channels, but also has a deeper motivation to continue to explore one of our major themes. Exchanges of ideas between network members continue, but just as importantly, the participating artists and researchers are responding to the radically altered situation and utility of their practice, in ways that are informed by the network project's activity almost immediately before the pandemic crisis began. The Reimagining Intimacy panels and symposium in December 2022 revealed the increasing relevance of the subject matter of the original project, during and in the aftermath of periods of lockdown in different countries. Practitioners from the original network group, and from an expanded group assembled for these events, reflected on complex impacts of the pandemic on their practice, and how participatory performance practices had adapted to online activity, and to restrictions on public gathering - in ways that have and enduring impact on their practice and how they make their work accessible and relevant in changing contexts. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Creative Economy |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Connection Grants |
| Amount | $40,000 (CAD) |
| Organisation | Government of Canada |
| Department | SSHRC - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Canada |
| Start | 11/2021 |
| End | 01/2023 |
| Description | Project funded under the Canadian SSHRC 'Re-Imagining Intimacy: Immersive and Participatory Performance in the Age of Covid 19' |
| Organisation | University of Calgary |
| Country | Canada |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | "Reimagining Intimacy: Immersive and Participatory Performance in the Era of Covid-19" was held over four days and in four separate locations between 14 - 17 December, 2022. Hosts include the University of Calgary and Concordia University in Canada, and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and the University of Greenwich in London, UK. Combining live and virtual performances, public workshops, artist laboratories, creator and scholar panels, and a one-day symposium, the event will approach its primary preoccupation from a wide and diverse range of perspectives. At the centre of all this activity was the key question, "What are the present conditions and future possibilities of intimacy in Immersive and Participatory Performance in a world transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic?" Prominent artists and scholars from across Canada, the USA, the UK, and northern Europe will convene to exchange, explore, and collectively vision around this shared preoccupation. Two of the convenors of the activity, Gareth White and Bruce Barton, were PI and Co-I on the Playing with Intimacy and Intensity network. Network members (including artists from ZU:UK, Lundahl and Seitl and Lab Collective) were speakers and workshop leaders in the 2022 event. |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project was led by the co-investigator on the Playing with Intimacy and Intensity Network, Bruce Barton of the University of Calgary. It is conceived as a follow on project that responds to the ongoing global situation, its impacts upon arts practice, and now participatory performance is positioned to respond. Network members (including artists from ZU:UK, Lundahl and Seitl and Lab Collective) were speakers and workshop leaders in the 2022 event. |
| Impact | No outcomes as yet. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Reimagining Intimacy - Artists forum and symposium. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The activities of Re-imagining Intimacy engaged an international group of artists. Eleven artists spoke at the Artist Forum on December 14th, and another seventeen presented their work at the symposium on December 17th. Performances and workshops between those two days involved between 6 and 20 participants. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://reimaginingintimacy.ca/rii-about/ |
| Description | Symposium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Playing with Intimacy and Intensity Symposium was a key part of the network project's activity. It followed immediately from our second lab session, and included feedback from the core network to the extended network invited to this event. There were also facilitated discussions, workshops and performances. Attendees at the symposium included performance producers and professional arts practitioners from outside of the academy, along with practitioner-researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |