Engaging the audience in decision-making

On the occasion of a workshop at the SPOR Festival in Aarhus in 2018, we decided to share with the audience our dilemma concerning the video projection in Daniel Moreira’s piece The Delivery. The problem was as follows: the marionette theatre designated for the performance had turned out to be too small to accommodate the staging intended by the composer, which consisted of a central projection with instruments placed on one side of the stage. Not only was the stage too small to fit the projection, piano and violin next to each other, but the dark colours of the walls made the projection blurry. After long deliberations, it was decided to place supplementary low-standing screens on each side of the stage running simultaneously with the backwall projection, with the performers standing right beneath the latter, in the centre of the stage. 

The new setting enhanced the visibility not only of the video but also of the performers, and contributed both to the rhythmical energy and to the overall intensity of the piece. Aesthetically, however, it had travelled far from Moreira’s original intentions , for it shifted the focus from the storyline of the film; that is, from a clear narrative structure to a multilayered interaction between between live performers, tape and video. 

The conversation with the audience during the workshop began in quite a heated tone, with the composer feeling somewhat cornered by the rest of the group, who supported the scenographer’s solution. As the discussion evolved, though, arguments became more nuanced; daring even. Suddenly, what had started as a fight between two sides turned into a common object of reflection and experimentation: what would happen if… The following evening, both audience and artists felt a strong ownership over the final presentation, aware at the same time that the iteration proposed was only one option out of many. 

Excerpt from an article published in OnCurating.org in February 2020