The disappearance or dispersal of the audience has been maybe the most radical impact of the pandemic on the theatrical event. Doris Kolesch and Ben Walmsley will discuss the fundamental shifts in what we understand by an audience and how it comes together, engages and creates a public space. This event is part of the Symposium Viral Theatres: Pandemic Past/Hybrid Futures, which is taking place at the Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin and online from April 28- April 30, 2022.
Doris Kolesch is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and Co-Director of the Collaborative Research Center “Affective Societies. Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds”, where she heads a research project on “Reenacting Emotions. Strategies and Politics of Immersive Theater”. She is also Principal Investigator in the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities – Doing Literature in a Global Perspective”, where she researches “Extended Audiences”, in the Collaborative Research Center “Intervening Arts” and in the Graduate Center “Normativity, Critique, Transformation”. Her research interests include theory and aesthetics of theatre, voice and acoustic culture, performance and performativity, affect and emotion studies, and audience research. Her innovative research has received various awards, among them the Essay Prize of the German Society for Theatre Studies and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize of the German Science Foundation (DFG).
Ben Walmsley is Director of the Center of Cultural Value at Leeds University and currently investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the UK’s cultural industries. He also leads the International Network for Audience Research in the Performing Arts. Among his publications are Audience Engagement in the Performing Arts(Macmillan 2019) and Key Issues in the Arts & Entertainments Industry (Goodfellow 2011). He is an Expert Advisor to the UK Governments Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports and was formerly a producer at the National Theatre of Scotland.
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If you have any questions, please contact Magda Romanska at magda@metalab.harvard.edu
The Viral Theatres-Research Project, a collaboration of the Free University, the Humboldt University and Bard College Berlin, is funded by the VolkswagenFoundation. The Opening Events are co-financed by the research project “Extended Audiences” in the Research Area “Travelling Matters” at the EXC2020 “Temporal Communities” and take place with kind support from the metaLAB (at) Harvard & FU Berlin, the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard’s Transmedia Arts Seminar, and the Open Society University Networks.
LOCATION:Online STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20220428T150000Z DTEND:20220428T150000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR