TYPES OF PARTICIPANTS
In order to categorize the different types of participant, I have followed again the examples that Kaprow proposed in "Notes on the Elimination of the Audience".
a. Enabler
The enabler functions differently from all other participants in the performance, he defines the system, language, moment and space. Always sets the stage without knowing precisely how the events will unfold. The collaborative situational performance piece Slow Clothes by Erin Manning made it clear to me that every system needs somebody to introduce choreographic objects to enable the participant's interactions with each other.
Every performance takes place at a common point of existence in a common space where different actors express one common idea through a common language. Of course, these elements may
be present only in part, while some may be more important in one context than in another.
b. Audience
To categorize the different types of participants in the audience, I once more take Kaprow as an example with reference to his participatory performance Notes on the Elimination of the Audience.
I use Kaprow’s categorization because it approaches what I look for explaining a different kind of audience with different kind of participation depending on the information received. An audience that is involved in many ways has to make personal choices, which recreate and modify the system, creating a different situation for the other performers. He (Kaprow) makes a distinction between three types of audience that can be involved in the development of the
system, the course of the performance and the final experience.
• The deliberate performer
Knows that he is a performer and has decided to be a performer. He can emerge spontaneously from the audience or natively, meaning that he has been recruited in advance.
• The temporary performer
Is the passerby who was not expecting to stumble upon this installation or performance and, naturally, stops to have a look, as one might do when a building is being demolished. They do not have a theatergoer’s mindset: their attention is only captured for a moment. They might stay, perhaps becoming involved in their surprise. However, they will likely move on after a few minutes.
• The automatic performer
Is engaged unwittingly with a performer or in performance as a part of some predetermined action. For example, a butcher will sell certain meats to a customer without him realizing that he is selling this meat in the context of a performance about the purchasing, cooking, and eating of meat. In this case, the butcher is the automatic performer. He has not heard the rules or seen the score because it is not his business to actively participate in the performance but to be automatically involved.
• The non-performer
Is the one who does not perform and is purely a spectator who is looking for an opportune distraction. Through the fourth wall, an imaginary wall between the audience and the performer in a traditional
three-walled theater set-up, the non-performer sees the actions happening in the world of the play. This spectator may know that he can participate but, for politeness or other reasons, his actions are limited to the observation.
There are many beginnings of this research. many memories, figures, and people, but, the images of peeling potatoes in the mountains of Sumapaz in Colombia are undoubtedly the germ of this trip through choreography, space, memory, and meaning. There I am sitting in a circle with a potato and a knife that was mine because of the custom of using it and customizing it to my needs. The chairs are lying on the floor, we formed a circle of 4 people, and there, in the middle of the daily work of peeling the potato that the same farm produced,
the stories arose, the comments the gossip and the most hidden secrets exposed by the complicity of the moment. there are different types of information about the action of the potatoes: those in the circle of chairs have access to the stories and gossip first hand; those who are close to the circle hear the laughter and see the faces and gestures; other more distant people will see the group of people as a unit of silent and dynamic laughter. In this case, I see how the information is not undone as it moves away from the circle but instead changes its medium and focus. then the idea of different participants arises.
