SHOWING WITHOUT GOING

Connections

Spectrums to do with participation/ Worktable

#participation

Approaches

Use of instructional material in the form of text, audio or visual guides to create a performance event where unrehearsed people perform the work. This can be done through various constellations of participation, eg. involving a solo audience creating a performance for itself, two audience members creating a performance for each other, a group involving collective participation, etc. 

The unrehearsed performers can also be specifically invited or 'cast' individuals who perform in front of a conventional audience (the audience may or may not know the performers are unrehearsed.)

It can also be combined with rehearsed, predictable, or fixed elements (actors, the sunset, hungry birds, recorded material, etc). 

#participation

Spectrums
mentally active
physical active

Spectrums
Spectator
Co-creator

Spectrums
Lost
Total

Spectrums
A moment
Infinity

Spectrums
Individual
Collective

Spectrums
Trusting
Controlling

Examples
Kate McIntosh

https://spinspin.be/kate-mcintosh/worktable/

First you choose an object from many displayed on a shelf. You enter the first room and find a table with many tools and a simple instruction to "take the object to pieces". You smash, slice, saw, drill, unscrew, bend, rip… and then place the pieces on a tray which you take into the second room and place on another shelf. There, you take another tray with the remains of someone else's act of destruction, someone else's object, and take it to a worktable where, in the presence of other participants, you put the object back together using a variety of provided materials: thread, glue, staples, twine… A carefully worded sign invites you to spend as long as you like doing this. When finished, you take your "mended" object through to the final room, where it finds its place among many others. 

Questions

What makes live performance compelling, what draws an audience in, is often linked to a performer 'at risk' in some way (not necessarily physically). 

If the artist / performer is absent, what happens to that element of risk? In what ways can it be felt / transferred from afar, or even over time? 

If someone else takes on that risk (audience member, delegated performer etc), how can that be acknowledged?