Will you play? Implications of audience interventions in improvised dance performance

Abstract

This article addresses participation through audience interventions in the work of Quick Shifts Improvisation Collective. It reflects upon a range of approaches taken by Quick Shifts that invite audience members to participate in the development of their improvised dance performances. These modes of participation in Quick Shifts’ practice and types of audience interventions are also considered in light of how they satisfy a broader social objective of cultural inclusivity and social value that can be equal to the aesthetic interests of Quick Shifts’ artistic goals. Encouraging audience interventions has implications for the performers, the model of practice and the audience members themselves, and through examining six specific examples from Quick Shifts’ body of performance work, these implications are revealed and analysed. Erving Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974) is used to explain and critique the design of the scores, and reveals issues of signalling the audience in the unconventional performance mode of improvised dance. The authors’ interrogation of the potential for the audience to be implicated as co-authors in the work begins to open up questions about what is effective and less effective in participation during improvised dance and to what extent do they, as participating performers, relinquish (or not) control of the work in response to such audience interventions.