Spectator invited to the II edition of the Congress. Member of Be SpectACTive!.
Bio
“Key word is audience engagement, a term used to highlight the dimensions of involvement in the arts of the spectators and the citizens. In Be SpectACTive! Communities of spectators/citizens play an active role expressing their willingness and interests. Taking part in co-programming, co-managing and co-commissioning activities, they are involved in co-creation spaces and in experimentation of new ways of artistic production, with the aim to promote the exchange between artists, professionals, and citizens.
As an active spectator and theater audience member, taking part in this project with Dublin Theater Festival allowed me a peek behind the curtain into the programming thought and consideration behind one of Ireland’s largest theater festivals. We were not only afforded space to engage with the critical processes of putting on a festival but also afforded seats at the programming table. Allowed to ask questions and debate and consider the whats and whys and what nots of theatrical presentation. It was an enriching process to be able to bring the voice of a youthful audience to the upper echelons of the organization and I believe it led to the active enrichment of the programming efforts of the festival.
Participating on the program we had a diverse array of spectators from all walks of life. To be allowed the opportunity to engage with such plurality of thought and experience was a boon to not only the festival my own experience of the theatrical endeavor and how we must always seek to serve, excite and challenge our audiences. To ask questions of them, to provoke thought, but also to entertain and enrich. To invite audiences and spectators into the theatrical project, to reach across the dividing stage line and exalt together.
Without audiences we have no project, no purpose, and through the endeavors of the Be SpectACTive program not only was that notion reaffirmed but elaborated upon and afforded further space at the core of the festival’s organization”.