Theatre and audience building

Average project titles: “Un-Labell: New Grounds for inclusive performing arts”, “EU collective plays!”, “Open-Hub Europe, The rise of the Community”; “Voices of Solidarity”, “Power of Diversity”, “SENSES: the sensory theatre: New transnational strategies for theater audience building”. The recurring words in the titles are: "EU, Europe, transnational, community, solidarity, diversity, inclusion". They underline that the projects are aimed at groups whose cultural identity is not clearly defined and who do not typically frequent theatre.

Take some examples: 'Theatre should not be complacent about elite audiences. Young audiences should be attracted to theatre in alternative ways, for example through sensory experiences. The process of democratisation of the supposedly elite theatre should be promoted "by strengthening the links between the cultural and educational spheres, the audience and the biodiversity of senses, approaches and ideas"[1]. Ultimately, as the project concludes, the democratisation of theatre allows for the expansion of audiences and "the upward lewelling of a complex and engaging consumption"[2].

The emphasis on "sensory experience" and the so-called "biodiversity of senses in theatre is uncomfortably reminiscent of the analogy of amoebas, which use sensory receptors to navigate without memory or intention. The project thus replaces the emotional and intellectual impact of theatre, to which young people are fully receptive, with sensory experiences. Moreover, it places the senses in an unreliable context of biodiversity, which not only degrades the intellectual capacity of young people, but also exposes the political agenda behind the concept.

Other twisted expressions of interactive audience building also deserves quotation: “Instead of just consuming mediated outrage and indignation at democracy's current epistemic crisis, citizens are empowered by a new "theatre" as a question-producing and digging machine to actively engage with the evolutions in our concepts of Truth, Trust and Transparency that the Human-AI confrontation/collaboration is forcing […]. It's like 'Black Mirror' live, a typically excited audience member said. And in that ‘liveness’ lies perhaps both the essence and salvation of theatrical arts: in its social (Catharsis) and interactive (Methexis) dimensions - or, simply, Cathexis”[3].

The grotesque diction of project descriptions mixes concepts such as biodiversity and democracy with the vocabulary of theater dramaturgy, while pursuing the blurred goal of "turning audiences into researchers". As for the drama itself, it is only reflected in the projects through the 'black mirror' of meaninglessness.

Terminology and idioms:

• Democratization of the elitist theatre
• Biodiversity of senses, approaches and ideas
• Lewelling upwards a complex and engaging consumption
• Cathexis – invented Greek word that gives only mening in the project
• Publicum as a question-producing and digging machine
• A typically excited audience member