"I didn't ask for any of this!" - Audience Consent & Participation in Dance

In the wee hours of the early morning (aka last night), I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and I came across an article that was shared across many of my friends in the dance circle. The title read "We Need to Talk About Non-Consensual Audience Participation" (link to article is below). As I read through the article, it touched on certain topics that compelled me to share on my wall, as well as my 2 cents worth of thoughts.

https://www.dancemagazine.com/we-need-to-talk-about-non-consensual-audience-participation-2611218336.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3

Photo by Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

However, curiosity got the better of me. I decided to start digging deeper and researching into the piece that received mixed reviews on various sites, from 'The Guardian' giving it a 4-stars rating to 'The Times' and 'Evening Standard' giving it 1-2 stars.

Nowadays, most dance pieces are breaking free of the traditional proscenium arch setting, of an audience seated in the dark watching a piece of dance unfolding in front of their eyes. With site-specific performance slowly becoming a more accustomed form of dance presentation, audiences are required to be more pro-active with their involvement in terms of traveling to a more non-conventional site, standing instead of sitting, etc. The possibilities for presenting dance are slowly becoming more accessible, intimate and perhaps, personal.

French choreographer Boris Charmatz feels as above - he feels "keen to move beyond the proscenium arch", where his new work '10000 gestures' pushed the boundaries of audience participation. Commissioned by the Manchester International Festival, '10000 gestures' was presented in the Old Mayfield train depot, a cavernous, spacious and industrial space perfect for 25 dancers to let loose and run wild. To some, Charmatz's piece was "exhilarating", "thrilling". However, yet to others, it was "trying on their patience" and was "testing their limits".

For one hour, the dancers performed 10000 gestures without ever repeating. Charmatz's radical experiment was to test "the limits of how we see and remember a work of dance". To the eyes of the audience, it seemed like a sea of chaos, "movements so rapid and random it is almost impossible to absorb" (Mackrell, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jul/14/10000-gestures-review-manchester-boris-charmatz). With the use of audience participation, it almost seemed unduly invasive (speaking as someone who wasn't even there) where the dancers would crowd up close to the audience, so close that they're clambering over the audience. Lauren Wingenroth, the author of the article published on Dance Magazine, recounted her experience:

"Having strangers touch you without asking is one thing. But before venturing into the audience, the cast - many of whom where barely clothed - were touching their genital onstage. This was hard to forget as they put their hands on our bodies, and inadvertently shoved said genitals into our faces"

Hmm, doesn't sound like the most pleasant encounter. The audience did not ask for any of this, and invading personal space without consent is just invasive and rude. That is an absolute no-no. Reading this makes my nose wrinkle in part embarrassment, part disgust and part confusion.

I am personally invested in this topic as this was my theme of my 3rd year dissertation at Rambert School, where I dissected dance pieces involving the use of audience participation successfully and pinpointing key points of engaging the audience successfully. Some of the pieces I researched into was "The Drowned Man" by Punchdrunk, "Without Touch" by Bittersuite and "In The Palm Of Your Hands" by Vera Tussing Projects. Each piece had vastly distinct concepts and methods of audience participation, but these performances followed these 3 'golden' (essential) rules:

1. Give your audience a heads-up into what they might be getting themselves into BEFOREHAND.

The audience should have the autonomy to choose not to participate, if you warn beforehand that there will be a certain degree of audience participation involved, and to what extent. Not giving the audience such choice beforehand feels like an ambush to the audience, who might be thinking that they are just simply going to attend and watch, unaware that they will have to be involved to some extent as well.

2. CONSENT - You can say no.

At any given moment, the audience should have the power to say no, in the event that they feel highly uncomfortable or triggered, especially if the piece contains crude references, nudity or anything sensitive. This also ensures that everyone - dancers and audiences are all safe. Lauren Wingenroth once again recounts that, "one dancer, trying to climb from the orchestra seats up to the balcony, shattered a light with her foot and sent shards of glass flying into the audience. The performers, slippery with sweat, haphazardly used audience members as weight-bearing surfaces. One dancer screamed at me to give her my hand to bear down on, as if I owed it to her. Across the orchestra, I saw an audience member being lifted above the heads of several performers. I'm guessing she wasn't asked if that was something she'd be interested in doing."

Safety comes first. Untrained plus unaware equals hazard/disaster/(insert words related to 'danger'). Someone put a PSA for this, please.

3. Use of Audience Participation should ENHANCE the experience, not the opposite.

Some of the most successful pieces I have watched/read/researched on had a specific intention with the use of audience participation. It helped to enrich the audience's experience. By inviting them to be more pro-active in their involvement, whether it is simply just by standing or doing a simple action, such moments should be carefully curated and thought through with the audiences' experiences in mind. Some of the most unsuccessful dance pieces involving audience participation simply assumes that the audience will be there to support and simply partake without being warned beforehand on their degree of involvement.

Non-consensual is an absolute no-no, no matter the intention or the purpose the choreographer is trying to serve (unless you are trying to gain some 'in'famous rapport within the community). Especially with reference to the nature of the piece that the author describes, I question the use of audience participation, and the lack of clothing (amongst other things).

We often neglect the importance of consent, especially from audience members who are not aware (beforehand) that the performance they are about to watch involves audience participation.

That being said, I want to be clear that this post is not to discourage audience participation, nor am I being skeptical to experimentation. I am all for experimenting and pushing the boundaries of how audiences experience, view and perceive dance. However, I believe that happen without putting anyone at risk of feeling unsafe, untrained, ill-prepared or un-informed. Boundaries can be pushed, and rules can be bent. But....

Consent is necessary.

Consent is respect.

Consent is safety.

We all have a responsibility towards one another, so let's respect that.