{"id":251,"date":"2020-10-18T07:57:40","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T07:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/?p=251"},"modified":"2022-02-05T09:49:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T09:49:15","slug":"relaxed-performance-an-ethnography-of-pedagogy-in-praxis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/relaxed-performance-an-ethnography-of-pedagogy-in-praxis\/","title":{"rendered":"Relaxed Performance: An Ethnography of Pedagogy in Praxis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Carla Rice<\/strong>,*<\/a> Chelsea Temple Jones<\/strong>,**<\/a> Jessica Watkin<\/strong>,***<\/a> Kayla Besse<\/strong>****<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In this co-written ethnography, we offer a co-curated account of how it feels to build, negotiate, witness and benefit from a community of practice nurtured by the principles of relaxed performance (RP). RP is a movement that invites all involved in a performance\u2014from directors to performers to audiences\u2014to be themselves (LaMarre, Rice and Besse). This invitation speaks to both technical interventions (such as dimmed lights and reduced ticket prices, among others) and social interventions rooted in disability justice frameworks, which offer an intersectional approach of thinking about body-mind difference in context. RP is an increasingly common intervention to performance production that pushes back against the \u201cquiet or invisible\u201d audience (Simpson 277), thus cultivating a new community of practice within which the four authors of this paper are deeply embedded. Our work teaching and researching RP takes place within neoliberal and colonial structures of post-secondary education and academic ableism across Turtle Island (northern part of the lass mass known as America) (Dolmage). Our deeply reflective accounts, informed by performance pedagogy and critical approaches to education, invite further thought on race, disability, gender and efforts to decolonize performance ethnography, as we deliberately draw on our intersecting positions as researchers, performers, writers, theatre-goers and audience members steeped in emergent and, at times, radical RP pedagogy. Here, we offer a relational account of our experiences moving between three multi-sensory performances and the university classroom, describing our own participation in the complex processes of community-building with body-mind difference in mind.
Keywords: <\/strong>relaxed performance, pedagogy, access, intersectionality, body-mind difference<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story One: A Snapshot of Relaxed Performance<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea: <\/strong>I sit in a dark theatre holding three slips of paper, each a different colour. \u201cDarkness,\u201d the audio describer says into a microphone. Then, \u201cJD appears centre stage, kneeling with their hand resting on a lowered mic stand.\u201d The performer, Jan Derbyshire\u2014referred to throughout the play as JD\u2014wears blue corduroys and high-top shoes. Strands of their short hair are lit up by the large, luminous moon above the set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood evening, Toronto!\u201d JD says to the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi JD!\u201d my colleague, Jessica Watkin, yells back. I am a researcher here to observe a Relaxed Performance (RP). I met Watkin a few months ago during another participant observation, wherein she delivered RP training to over 100 theatre students at a major Canadian university. My participant observation in the community and across three university sites is part of the fieldwork involved in an ongoing research project of The British Council of Canada and Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life (hereafter BIT) focused on RP in Canada. I can see Jessica grinning in the dark. I say nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
JD, wearing a blue plaid shirt and holding a microphone, stands centre stage, under a spotlight, with the rest of the stage blacked out. The moon hangs directly above JD’s head<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

JD begins talking. This isn\u2019t the show. Rather, JD is speaking to the audience before the show begins, inviting us to leave at any time during their performance in order to take care of ourselves if needed. Following RP tradition, the lights are dim, and JD invites us to move around during the show. \u201cIf your selfcare isn\u2019t going well, just skip the show\u2014it\u2019s not that good,\u201d JD jokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to JD\u2019s self-deprecation, the performer has been cheekily praised as \u201cinsanely funny\u201d in this one-person show, Certified<\/em> (Hobson). Structured as a mental-health review board hearing, this performance is a caustically comical meditation on JD\u2019s \u201cbodymind,\u201d a term favoured by Disability Studies scholars because it attempts to overcome problems with the mind\/body split in Western thought, which treats the mind and body as separate or separable entities, and which privileges the former, as interior and superior, over the latter, as exterior and inferior (Rice et al. 4). JD\u2019s bodymind is a point where madness meets gender, sexuality and rurality, all at once, as a quirky JD chronicles their childhood, relationships and trips across Turtle Island (the northern part of the landmass known as America). Throughout the show, JD and the audio describer interact, nit-picking over words and creating a heteroglossic effect\u2014another sure sign that this is an RP. The audio describer, JD explains, is the fourth voice in their head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RP elements in this performance\u2014the dim lights, the audio describer, the actor\u2019s attention to the audience\u2019s needs\u2014follow the traditions of disability theatre, an international field of practice both activist and artistic in orientation, rooted in a larger disability arts and culture movement which has diverse roots in different national contexts (Johnston 15). Unlike traditional theatre conventions wherein audiences are generally expected to sit still, be quiet and behave, RP is a creative opportunity to re-imagine theatre traditions and to invite all involved in a performance\u2014from directors to performers to audiences\u2014to be themselves. The invitation for people to be themselves is an invitation for co-presencing\u2014for bringing together audiences that are \u201cnot expected to remain self-contained, static and silent\u201d and whose movements will impact themselves and others (LaMarre et al. 29). Disability theatre debunks (non-disabled, middle class, white) notions of civility embedded in Anglo-western theatre traditions from the early twentieth century onwards, and RP speaks to the access gestures that come with this larger challenge to ableism. As Kirsty Johnston puts it in her book Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism<\/em>, these challenges are \u201cexplorations of new ways to put disability on the stage\u201d both conceptually and methodologically by acknowledging and attending to disability as a lively aesthetic presence and making room for the things that make the presence of disability possible (26).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Simpson argues that the unrequited acceptance of \u201cquiet-audience etiquette\u201d as a performance norm radically reduces accessibility (277). So, instead of excluding spectators who might traditionally be understood as audience outsiders, RP invites a new perspective on performance as an embodied, communal event (227). Reorienting to performance in this way follows traditions in disability art that understand orientations toward accessibility as a \u201ccreative enhancement\u201d (LaMarre et al. 4). More tacitly, this open invitation speaks to physical and social interventions. Physical space modifications commonly include reducing ticket prices and inviting audiences to move around during the show. Social interventions might include reaching out to disabled people and inviting them, and clarifying with the audience that their comfort is the priority\u2014traditionally there are no \u201crules\u201d for how to behave in this type of performance (Kempe 63). What it means to \u201crelax\u201d a performance might look and feel different on a case-by-case basis. In this case, it\u2019s dimmed lights, an audio describer and JD\u2019s constant interaction with us, the audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, RP is also rooted in disability justice frameworks, which offer an intersectional approach of thinking about bodymind difference as it materializes in social structures and power relations. Disability justice is a form of activism that advocates for justice for all and is led by and for disabled Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) focused on experiences of disability and ableism from an intersectional perspective (Cripping the Arts<\/em> 21). For that reason, we, as the four authors of this piece, attend to race, power and privilege as we witness and participate in RP. Here, we offer an account of our own engagement with RP for those who were not there, so that we might share a glimpse into a local disability justice-rooted movement which is increasingly challenging international theatre conventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction: Linking Relaxed Performance to Ethnography<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Carla, Chelsea and Jessica:<\/strong> To investigate the nuances of RP as they are currently experienced in an urban Canadian context, we draw on a critical, co-written performance ethnography rooted in participant observation. Following traditions of creative analytic practice that encourage unique forms of knowing-through-writing in ethnographic praxis, this method offers six snapshots\u2014or short slice-of-life stories\u2014of our own encounters with RP in the pursuit of social justice (Richardson and St. Pierre 960). Between November 2019 and June 2020, the four authors of this paper collectively attended two professional RP performances, facilitated or attended five RP training sessions as part of university theatre and choir courses and interviewed 21 people involved in RP training. This data gathering follows two years of research focused on RP by the Re\u2022Vision Centre for Art and Social Justice, which culminated in the 2019 report \u201cRelaxed Performance: Exploring Accessibility in the Canadian Theatre Landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Re\u2022Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice. University of Guelph. Photo: Web<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Our engagement with RP varies from one author to the next. The first author, Carla, founded Re\u2022Vision and has been engaged in RP research, training and mobilization for three years. Here, Carla is positioned as a white, queer audience member living with mental difference who, with her Indigenous spouse, attended a play in downtown Toronto focused on Indigenous women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second author, Chelsea, is a white, queer, mad-identified researcher also positioned here as an audience member. Her role is described in the opening of this article as she attended Certified<\/em> with the third author of this paper, Jessica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica is a white settler and Blind artist-scholar-dramaturge, whose role as RP facilitator includes delivering RP training to students in post-secondary contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth author, Kayla, is also an RP facilitator. Kayla does not tell a story here, but her experiences inform the writing of the other authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following ethnographic traditions, we introduce ourselves in more detail, and in our own voices, in the stories that follow. And, in keeping with disability justice, we write knowing that our positionalities have a stake in the power relations that operate around RP\u2014how it is experienced, witnessed and played out in our respective engagements with performance from these sitpoints, to borrow from disabled essayist Nancy Mairs (1996). We also understood at the outset of this writing that our work takes place within the neoliberal and colonial structures of post-secondary education and academic ableism on Turtle Island (Dolmage). Our reflective accounts\u2014informed by disability theatre, which takes into account disability as a cultural idea (Johnston; Mitchell et al. 567)\u2014invite further thought on the intersections of disability, race, gender, Indigeneity and efforts to decolonize performance ethnography, as we gradually draw out our positions as researchers, teachers and audience members steeped in emergent and, at times, radical RP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story Two: Teaching Relaxed Performance<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Jessica: <\/strong>I am not relaxed. I am standing at the front of the kind of large lecture hall I have visited since my undergraduate studies. I\u2019m a guest in this classroom, about to introduce complicated non-normative concepts about disability theatre and accessibility that might be destabilizing for students. Best to let the students trickle in in silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t see a single person in front of me, but I am sure people are there. I begin with a joke. I hear their laughter, which reassures me of their engagement. This brings up a memory: in high school, when I was just gaining my Blindness, a teacher said to the class, \u201cI can tell if you\u2019re paying attention and thinking if you are looking at me and blinking; blinking tells me you are engaged.\u201d Since childhood, I have been asked to perform ableist standards of engagement in institutional spaces. In this way, academic ableism is at work clarifying its \u201ctaxonomy of abnormality\u201d by dividing the sighted from the non-sighted in the hierarchy of learners (Dolmage 110). Disabled bodies’ daily performances in higher education and elsewhere are marked as deviant so others can more easily be read as normal (Scott 62). It wasn\u2019t until I began delivering RP training in 2018 that I realized that what my teacher told me about \u201cperforming my engagement\u201d through blinking was, to be blunt, absolute bullshit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dive into an intersectional origin story of RP as it is tied to disability theatre. RP movements took root, I explain, in the U.K. in the 1990s, and they were described in their early days as \u201cautism-friendly\u201d for their work of widening the scope of children\u2019s participation in theatre with particular reference to kids who are part of the autism spectrum (Kempe 59). The concept of RP is broadening and an increased need for specialized training including and beyond theatre has emerged (LaMarre et al. 3). As part of this timeline, I play a sexy video from Sins Invalid<\/em> (a BIPOC disability arts group from San Francisco) and someone asks if there is more archival footage on their website. \u201cOf course! Check them out on Instagram,\u201d I respond\u2014first year students love Instagram, right? It occurs to me these folks may not end up using this material in their theatre work for a long time, but for me that doesn\u2019t make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, the British Council Canada and BIT published a report that aimed at understanding the experiences and impacts of RP training on those involved and on audience members. This research found a need for RP to include disability-led training and to integrate disability justice into its praxis (LaMarre et al. 8). Soon, I was hired to do this job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My job goes far beyond offering students a checklist of how to make their performances accessible. Though the inclusion of audio description, accessible venues, lighting adjustments, American Sign Language interpretation and other gestures are important, accessibility is a broad concept informed by recent interventions in disability theatre and justice. I take this moment to explain disability justice: it is as much a framework for worldmaking that resists assimilation into normalcy as it is the everyday acts of honouring our bodyminds (Sins Invalid 7). To demonstrate how disability justice can be enacted in a classroom, I begin these seminars by inviting my students not<\/em> to visually engage with me. This is one way of relaxing the room. Students are welcome to look at their cell phones, to close their eyes and have a rest, or to simply make their gaze comfortable. I model this \u201crelaxed\u201d approach when I explain to my students that I best engage with content by fidgeting, drawing or by using my laptop, and that it is up to them to make the choice of how best to engage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A photo of Jessica Watkin facilitating a Relaxed Performance training session, October 4, 2019, at York University. She is seated at a conference table; a couple of participants are visible to the right of the frame. Photo: Alomar Kocur<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I tell students that \u201clike a garden, disability justice does not bloom overnight.\u201d I plant some big seeds about equity, non-normative theatre practices and RP as a concept that can help lead us toward a more radical understanding of access that invites further thought on race, disability, gender, Indigeneity and efforts to decolonize performance. I nestle these seeds gently. I try to sow a longer-lasting connection to disability theatre. My approach draws on Johnston\u2019s description of critical approaches to disability theatre that \u201cremind us not only of how very long some cultural narratives of disability have been haunting Western culture but also the ways in which Critical Disability Studies opens up such narratives to readings that demand a fuller engagement with embodiment, disability experience, knowledge, and history\u201d (Johnston 19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then suggest that, while they continue on with their studies and developing their own practices, the integration of disability in their work may begin to take root in different ways. \u201cIt\u2019s creative problem solving!\u201d I say, hoping something sticks. I want them to leave the lesson having felt what it means to be in a relaxed space, with disability justice leading the conversation. I want to offer them something experiential that they remember as more significant than just an RP \u201cto-do\u201d list that starts with dimming the lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key part of RP cannot be gleaned from a classroom setting: the impact it has on a given production. RP engages with each performance production differently, as the modifications are catered to every theatre space, urban environment and engagement that specific theatre has with its patrons. The nuances of every performance practicing RP are difficult to articulate. When asked what I would suggest to any new theatre practitioner beginning their journey with RP\u2014with integrating access into their theatre practice\u2014I suggest they attend RPs to understand the features and to compare one production to another. As with any skill, RP takes seeing the performance modelled, learning the theory behind it and trying it out ourselves more than once over time to get it right. In a playwriting class at the University of Toronto, Djanet Sears gave students her best advice for anyone trying to write plays: Read plays, see plays, write plays. For me, the same principles can be applied to becoming more accessible in our theatre practice: Read about accessible performances, see them and then try to do the work with our own productions. It takes more than understanding the concepts of RP to feel the embodied, affective experience of being an audience member in a production that accounts for your presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story Three: Opening RP with Discussion<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Carla: <\/strong>On a frigid February night in Toronto, my queer spouse and I spot the glowing yellow lights of Theatre Passe Muraille which beckon us into its warm cosy space. We have come for bug<\/em>, the one-woman play created by Indigenous artist Yolanda Bonnell (Ojibwe-South Asian) and directed by Cole Alvis (M\u00e9tis), which my spouse, who is Indigenous, wanted to see, and which I, a white settler researcher with mental difference who studies RP, also wanted to experience first-hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I have researched RP for the past three years, this was my first opportunity to witness RP in a decolonized theatre production. bug<\/em> has been described by Bonnell as following its main character, \u201cThe Girl,\u201d \u201cas she navigates her way through intergenerational trauma while being haunted by Manidoons [Ojibwe for bug]\u201d (Theatre Passe Muraille), which become the physical manifestation of her addictions in the play. Combining poetry, dance, gesture, sound and song, this physical performance weaves together stories of Indigenous women grappling with the psychic and intergenerational impacts of colonial violence while making difficult decisions about how to survive in the settler colonial nation we call Canada. The development of a decolonized RP sprung from Bonnell\u2019s experience of the unsustainability and unhealthiness of colonial theatre-as-usual: \u201cThis idea in the professional industry world of leaving your shit at the door is just not real. It\u2019s not an actual thing you can do. And so, rather than that, let\u2019s talk about where you are at today. So that we are in space with each other . . . we can respect each other, and where our bodies are at\u201d (Sur).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my reading of bug, <\/em>I brought a commitment to Indigenous and disabled people\u2019s self-determination and to the cultivation of activist art for social transformation. Yet, the intersections between Indigeneity and disability have long been ignored, despite Indigenous artistic and scholarly works that explore how the (Canadian) state\u2019s debilitating treatment of First Peoples has served the geopolitics of settler-colonial nation building. For instance, settler-imposed socio-political regimes (capitalism, land theft and forced containment of First Peoples on reserves with unsafe living conditions and in residential schools leading to well-documented abuses and cultural genocide) have produced high degrees of debility among Indigenous peoples, resulting in disproportionate impairment and early death. As a result, the rate of disabilities experienced by Indigenous people in Canada is twice<\/em> that of non-Indigenous people (British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, although Indigenous communities grapple with the same ablest logics for understanding disability (that is, as defect or inferiority) as settlers, these are magnified for Indigenous people, who also grapple with the colonial framing of Indigeneity as a sign of deficiency and lack compared to a euro-white non-disabled standard (Kelly and Rice 10\u201317; see discussion). Notions of \u201cdefectiveness\u201d that have been imposed on Indigenous bodies and lives through colonial knowledge systems have meant that the ascription of disability, madness or other bodymind difference threatens Indigenous peoples\u2019 access to the category of human; and this makes the claiming of disability itself a (relative) privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is against this fraught backdrop that Bonnell developed a decolonized RP, pushing into<\/em> the ways that colonial processes have produced high rates of disability (including addictions and the psychic effects of trauma) among First Peoples and pushing against<\/em> the very negative ways that disability continues to be coded (and Indigenous peoples coded as disabled) in settler-colonizer contexts. To make this double move, Bonnell centred Indigenous and disabled bodyminds before, during and after her performance, and she additionally stressed her intention to uphold and enhance the well-being of artists and audience members, especially those who identified as Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people dealing with the effects of heteropatriarchal colonial violence. Before the performance, for example, Bonnell acknowledged and invited Indigenous women and Two-Spirit audience members to identify themselves by raising a hand, making a noise, standing up or otherwise gesturing at her; and she noted that this call out was intentional given the ways that settler cultural spaces have not always welcomed Indigenous people in. They and non-Indigenous people in the audience were then invited to do what they needed to in order to care for themselves and receive care from others during the performance\u2014step outside, ask for support and, in general, be present and\/or absent in the ways that they\/we needed to be. An Indigenous counsellor with medicines (sage for smudging) was on site to provide support and ceremony. In the call-and-response style question-and-answer session following the performance, Bonnell posed questions of the audience and the audience of her and the show\u2019s director, Cole Alvis. Here, again, she privileged the responses of Indigenous women and Two-Spirit audience members by inviting their comments and questions first, allowing a warm silence to descend in order to create space for previously marginalized perspectives to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
bug | manidoons collective co-presented by Theatre Passe Muraille and Native Earth Performing Arts. This image shows a woman in a purple top with red, embroidered cardigan over it lying on her back. She is on the floor painted in a multicoloured pattern meant to look like the night sky. The woman is holding her braided ponytail above her head. Created and performed by Yolanda Bonnell. Scenography by Jay Havens. Lighting Design by Michel Charbonneau. Photo: Dahlia Katz<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Story Four: RP Beyond the Classroom<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Jessica: <\/strong>If, at the theatre, I must disclose my Blindness for ushers or box office people to assist me, I note how they respond\u2014their physicality, their language toward me. Then, during the production, I am attentive to any factors that create ease of engagement. I take all of my experiences into account while facilitating RP training, which is perhaps unsurprising: the labour of organizing more accessible performances tends to be invisibilized because it is rarely taught in higher education. \u201cAnd mostly, when it happens,\u201d Piepzna-Samarasinha explains, \u201cit happens because sick and disabled and Deaf and crazy folks make it happen, because we are the ones who a) care and b) have been sick\/disabled\/crazy Deaf science and skills to make it happen\u201d (154).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through facilitating RP training in university classrooms\u2014bringing it into institutions, and then going to some RPs in the \u201creal world\u201d\u2014I\u2019ve had space to reflect on what it means to relax. My own realizations about what it means hit me during an experience as an audience member when I did not feel<\/em> relaxed. Jess Thom, creator of the Touretteshero<\/em> performance project, says this of how RP makes us feel<\/em>:  \u201cLots of people are worried that if you start relaxing the rules around theatre etiquette that there\u2019s anarchy, but in my experience there isn\u2019t. It\u2019s a more comfortable way to watch theatre that doesn’t ask people to put themselves through discomfort or pain or deny the humanness of their bodies\u201d (Paskett). The language here resists the assumption that normative, \u201ctraditional\u201d theatre makes nondisabled, neurotypical people comfortable; what we are relaxing is not the people but the structures of theatre that make a performance space \u201cnaturally\u201d conducive to neurotypical engagement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quiet,<\/em>
Dark,<\/em>
Still, and<\/em>
Contained.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a theatre creator, since my training days, I have been taught to create for an audience (and, of course, for myself). That invitation inherently assumes an audience inside of my head. As a Disabled person, that means I spend a lot more time plugged into the Disabled audience experience. I capitalize the D in Disability here as it pertains to my identity and how that identity connects to the larger community of Disabled people. I identify as a member of the Disabled community as someone who has a disability. But if a theatre creator\/designer does not have the lived experience of Disability, or hasn\u2019t engaged with accessible practice, I wonder about the assumptions they are making based on who attends a performance. The word \u201csightlines\u201d comes up in many facets of the design, but, as a Blind creator, sightlines only creep in when I am thinking of the Deaf audience members who may attend my performance, because \u201csightlines\u201d has little meaning to my own lived experience of attending performances and, ultimately, as a nonvisual performance creator, is low on my priorities. What this perspective has to offer theatre creation is not manipulating already-established theatre tenets such as lighting (both in the house and on stage), but emphasizing the politicized aesthetics of accessibility and Disability. This involves making decisions based on a large possibility that patrons may attend any performance and that we do not know how they process information. Through RP and other accessibility measures already mentioned, we can not only anticipate needs but also demonstrate a space where people in the audience feel dignity. Integration of accessible models of performance propels the integration of Disabled audience members in theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I normally sit in an audience, whether in England, Ireland, the United States or Canada, if there isn\u2019t a dedication to accessible or decolonial practices in the space, I follow a learned contract, as it were, as an audience member: I sit quietly throughout the performance, I clap at the end and I respect others around me. Some theatres have different rules: do not bring food inside, only water, only glasses of wine with lids. Some performances have interactive elements or are site-specific so that the contract is less clear, but the role of the audience member prevails: We witness, we only respond to a performance when it is our time to do so, and we may or may not be able to leave and come back into the theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performers capture attention to tell a story,<\/em>
the audience agrees to hold the space and bear witness to what’s happening.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When attending an RP, however, this kind of contract is turned on its head: the audience is invited to engage, make noise, move around, leave and come back and eat (among many other things). When teaching RP, I talk about this contract and suggest that, as audience members, we observe how others participate around us. I\u2019ve been in RPs where the entire audience is tuned in to a single person who is making noise and moving, and the atmosphere is tense because it is unfamiliar inside the theatre space, at least in North America. The final facet of RP that I think is important to explore, then, is how it feels<\/em> to be inside an RP and how this particular cultural audience (Disabled and Neurodivergent) fruitfully engages with, responds to and shapes the kind of theatre available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Disabled theatre scholar I write from a different perspective: I literally see performances differently, and so my idea of what is \u201cnormal\u201d or \u201caccepted\u201d in theatre spaces is skewed. What keeps me going in this vein of work, however, is the intense belief that, as Sean Lee recently explained on the podcast Secret Feminist Agenda<\/em>, access is a vital aesthetic; disabled audiences have something to offer the nondisabled theatre world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story Five: Owning Docility as an Audience Member<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea: <\/strong>If I\u2019d realized that as an audience member I would be called on to interact with the performer, I might not have suggested we come here. We are back where we began: at JD\u2019s play, Certified<\/em>, and the audience is cast as a mental health review board. By the end of the show, we are invited to vote on JD\u2019s sanity. Diagnosis, JD reminds us, always involves an educated guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a white cis-gender introvert, I enjoy the privilege of blending into an audience, and as such I fit right into what Simpson calls \u201cthe cult of the quiet audience\u201d (277). This audience\u2014\u201cquiet or invisible\u201d\u2014is something both recent and historically atypical (277). Tracing silence as normalized theatre etiquette to at least the 1950s, Simpson points out that today\u2019s regulation of audience behaviour is a matter of self-policing by a collective group (Simpson 228). In her analysis, Simpson points to Foucault\u2019s work on docile bodies, which asks us to consider how groups\u2014such as the \u201cquiet audience\u201d\u2014come to be and how this being affects our process of identification of ourselves and the Other. For Foucault, this kind of binding between bodies is the result of \u201ca multiplicity of minor processes\u201d circulating across various institutions, and in response to particular needs (133). What was the need for a static, almost silent audience? Who does this audience serve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been so indoctrinated into the \u201ccult of the quiet audience\u201d that even in an RP setting, where I\u2019ve already been invited to behave differently than usual, I won\u2019t get up and move around. I won\u2019t make noise. I won\u2019t ask for what I need. I am ensconced in what Snyder and Mitchell call a \u201cdesire for safety,\u201d experienced by the normate actor or, in my case, theatregoer (156). I\u2019m realizing, though, that my perceived safety vis-\u00e0-vis inaction serves no one. Following Scott, the listener is<\/em> a performer, taking on the performative role of audience member (10). Performance ethnography is a method wherein the writer-as-performer is always present. The method is praised for its critique of cultural practices that reproduce oppression, and I am increasingly aware that my stiff compliance to audience norms is itself a processual process of subscribing to normalcy and colonial norms\u2014my anxious frozen-ness is a way of performing myself amid others in the world (Denzin 19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, when it is time to vote on JD\u2019s sanity, I give in. I raise my yellow slip of paper and participate. Yellow means I can\u2019t be certain about JD\u2019s sanity, but as a mad person myself I offer this vote more as a small gesture of solidarity than as a sign of uncertainty. I look around at most of the other papers fluttering high in the air so JD can see them. There are some red papers indicating that JD is certifiably insane. But, most of them are green. Green, according to JD, means \u201cGo, dog, go!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story Six: Leaving a Relaxed Performance<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Carla: <\/strong>I leave the theatre with a lingering sense of connection and, strangely, of hope. I knew that by witnessing bug <\/em>I had been given a rare gift\u2014the opportunity to attend closely to Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people speaking about art created by, for and about Indigenous women and Two Spirit peoples addressing the intergenerational and interiorized fallout of colonial violence. Reflecting afterwards, I realized that what was heartening was how the conversation landed not on the violence (that continues to be) done so much as on the validation that the art offered its witnesses, in the tender container Bonnell and Alvis created, using decolonized RP strategies, to safely explore of the wounds of colonial trauma. In so doing, they opened a passageway into the strength, resourcefulness and positivity of those surviving, living and creating in spite of and through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the theatre context, RP is a gesture of \u201copening up theatre<\/em>\u201d (LaMarre et al. 7). From a disability theatre perspective that acknowledges disability\u2019s \u201cgenerative potential\u201d (Johnston 62), Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha describes the importance of \u201copening\u201d performances:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having an accessible space for performers and attendees and workers, where disability is not marginalized, tokenized, or simply absent, is very different from having a performance space that is full of mostly able-bodied, young, non-parenting people who can afford to spend the money to attend and\/or to get there in the first place.<\/p>(150)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bonnell purposely invited only Indigenous, Black and racialized critics to review the show in an effort to \u201camplify\u201d voices of critics who would likely dig deeper into experiences of addiction and intergenerational trauma at the intersections and share a perspective often absent in whitestream media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We might interpret this gesture as issuing a challenge to settler colonization and white supremacy, especially if we understand these terms not as referring to the extreme positions held by overt racists but rather as referencing the large, relatively invisible and interconnected systems that uphold white privilege and power and perpetuate the devaluation, \u201cexclusion and premature death of people of color in settler colonial states\u201d (Bonds and Inwood 716), often times through the debilitation of BIPOC populations in precisely the ways Bonnell examines in her play. This move generated much controversy in the Canadian press (Fricker) and a flurry of online racism directed at Bonnell (Sur). While her request especially irked and affronted many in Canada\u2019s largely white community of culture critics (Nestruck), some of these critics, by asserting their own impartiality and questioning that of their racialized counterparts (Sur), inadvertently revealed the operations of white supremacy in Canadian cultural criticism. The online pushback from BIPOC communities in response to this criticism may have galvanized one white male theatre critic, Kelly Nestruck to change the title of his original review from \u201cThe colour of criticism: How should media respond when an artist asks for only non-white critics to review them?\u201d to \u201cHow should media respond when an artist limits reviews to critics who are Indigenous, black and people of colour?\u201d (Sur). He also attended the play a second time and co-authored another review\u2014this time taking the form of an online conversation with Cree performance studies scholar Karyn Recollet that centred her (more) informed reading of Bonnell\u2019s work (Recollet and Nestruck). In some ways, the relational format of this second review came to mirror the relational RP practices around which Bonnell and Alvis wrapped their offering, thus giving readers and audiences pause for deeper reflection and perhaps indicating a small tear in the fabric of white supremacy itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, public conversation has brought to light the urgent need for more racialized, Indigenous and disabled art critics (Jones et al.). For many theatregoers, including me, Bonnell\u2019s work also brought greater attention to the potential of decolonized RP as a \u201crelational practice\u201d (Recollet and Nestruck) that takes disability and race into account as cultural ideas (Johnston 16), making space for Indigenous artists living the effects of heteropatriarchal colonial violence to speak their truth to settler power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflections on Method<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Carla, Chelsea and Jessica: <\/strong>Theatre provides a litmus test for the \u201csocial appetites\u201d of culture (Snyder and Mitchell 155). Accordingly, we must pay attention to bodymind configurations in the field of theatre, including our own roles as observers, teachers and researchers. Therefore, each of the authors here offers a glimpse into RP from a collision of these roles\u2014we are never only one thing\u2014and it is our intention through performance ethnography to single out and deconstruct these roles in order to critically interrogate the lexicon of performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the lead of Denzin and Scott, we\u2014Carla, Chelsea and Jess\u2014drew on performativity to write out the degrees to which our own intersecting identities could adapt to a new type of performance\u2014a type of performance that invites \u201cbodies to be bodies\u201d (LaMarre et al. 2). The data collected in these reflexive stories comes from our long-term relationships with disability over many years, as well as our ongoing engagements with disability theatre, disability justice and RP. Our collective analysis here involves gathering data from our own lived experiences and filling the page, finding themes and reconnecting with RP both from our recent engagement with RP and from our memories (Heewon et al. 101\u201302). Scott describes storytelling performance as cultural research and expression that is collaborative enough to ensure that our work with one another is never over but remains an ongoing \u201cco-struggle of sense-making to co-create self, other, and culture\u201d (10). Ultimately, we chose co-written performance ethnography as a method for its ability to deploy storytelling as a performance in and of itself (Scott 4).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A photo of Kayla Besse facilitating a Relaxed Performance training session, October 4, 2019, at York University. She is seated at a conference table; Jessica Watkin is to the right and many participants are visible on both sides of the table. The screen behind her says \u201cMaking Social Media Accessible.\u201d Photo: Alomar Kocur<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea: <\/strong>RP leads us toward prefigurative politics\u2014\u201ca fancy term for imaging and building the world we want to see now\u201d (Piepzna-Samarasinha 149). Arguably, this is a world that transcends the traditional role of the \u201csilent\u201d audience and, instead, offers further thought on disability, race, gender, Indigeneity and efforts to decolonize performance. Even as a mad-identified person, Chelsea can call out her own white docility, challenging dominant discourses that inform theatre performance and, in particular, the role of the audience member. Jessica’s stories of delivering RP training and engaging in \u201creal world\u201d theatre as a Blind person are crucial to the realization of these prefigurative politics because these stories push back against the long-standing erasure of disabled bodies from audiences and from productions. And, Carla\u2019s privileged account of participating in bug <\/em>suggests that a decolonial lens adds an even more invitational element to RP\u2014an element that is critical of who is in the space and makes intentional gestures toward reconciliation that might be absent elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, in the wake of recent uprisings against white settler incursion into Indigeous territories and police violence against Black and Indigenous peoples, commentators have begun to surface the histories and ongoing legacies of white settler supremacy in the cultural landscape in Canada (Parris). We do not wish to separate ourselves from these commentaries \u2014Jessica, for example, has been an active presence on Twitter asking for a more accessible #InTheDressingRoom hashtag, which is circulating in an effort to draw attention to Black people\u2019s experiences of racism in Canadian theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As interventions on the diversity of performance grow in Canada and elsewhere, it is imperative that we reflect on, and attend to, disability theatre experiences and  RP\u2019s development from a myriad of perspectives that make space for further consideration of efforts to decolonize performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOTE<\/strong>: While it was unclear in his published articles, theatre critic Kelly Nestruck has since clarified that he attended Bonnell’s play <\/em>bug only once and that he did not attend her show prior to writing his first commentary questioning the request she made for a BIPOC critic to review it. He also clarified that he did not write the headline of his first commentary; an unnamed staff person at the <\/em>Globe and Mail wrote it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Bennett, Susan. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. <\/em>Routledge, 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonds, Anne, and Joshua Inwood. \u201cBeyond White Privilege: Geographies of White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism.\u201d Progress in Human Geography<\/em>, vol. 40, no. 6, 2016, pp. 715\u201333.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society. \u201cBCANDS Accessibility Consultation Report.\u201d National Indigenous Federal Accessibility Legislation Consultation.<\/em> Victoria, BCANDS, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlson, Licia. \u201cDocile Bodies, Docile Minds: Foucauldian Reflections on Mental Retardation.\u201d Foucault and the Government of Disability<\/em>, edited by Shelley Tremain, U of Michigan P, 2005, pp. 133\u201352.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chang, Heewon, Faith Ngunjiri, and Kathy-Ann Hernandez. Collaborative Autoethnography. <\/em>Vol. 8, Left Coast Press, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cripping the Arts: Access Guide<\/a>.<\/em>  2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denzin, Norman K. Performance Ethnography<\/em>. SAGE Publications, 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dolmage, Jay. Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education<\/em>. U of Michigan P, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fletcher-Watson, Ben, and Sean May. \u201cEnhancing Relaxed Performance: Evaluating the Autism Arts Festival.\u201d Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance<\/em>, vol. 50, no. 3, 2018, pp. 406\u201320.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. <\/em>Vintage Books, 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fricker, Karen. \u201cCritics Who Aren\u2019t Indigenous, Black or People of Colour Aren\u2019t Invited to \u2018Bug.\u2019 Yolanda Bonnell Explains Why<\/a>.\u201d Toronto Star, <\/em>10 Feb. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harman, Ruth, and Greg McClure. \u201cAll the School\u2019s a Stage: Critical Performative Pedagogy in Urban Teacher Education.\u201d Equity and Excellence in Education<\/em>, vol. 44, no. 3, 2011, pp. 379\u2013402.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heim, Caroline. Audience as Performer: The Changing Role of Theatre Audiences in the Twenty-First Century<\/em>. Routledge, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hobson, Louis, B. \u201cComedian\u2019s Own Mental Health Crisis at Heart of Pumphouse Play, Certified<\/a>.\u201d National Post, <\/em>10 Mar. 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnston, Kirsty. Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism<\/em>. Bloomsbury, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kai Mak, Danny. \u201cIn Certified, Jan Derbyshire Adroitly Untangles Her Experiences in the Mental-Health System<\/a>.\u201d The Georgia Straight<\/em>, 4 Nov. 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly, Evadne, and Carla Rice. \u201cElements of a Counter-Exhibition: Excavating and Countering a Canadian History and Legacy of Eugenics.\u201d Journal for the History of Behavioural Sciences<\/em>, forthcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kempe, Andrew J. Widening Participation in Theatre through \u201cRelaxed Performances.\u201d <\/em>Vol. 31, Cambridge UP, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LaMarre, Andrea, Carla Rice, and Kayla Besse. Relaxed Performance: Exploring Accessibility in the Canadian Theatre Landscape<\/a>,<\/em> 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee, Sean. \u201cDisability Art is the Last Avant-Garde with Sean Lee<\/a>.\u201d Secret Feminist Agenda<\/em>, 12 June 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mairs, Nancy. Waist-High in the World<\/em>. Beacon Press, 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitchell, David. T., and Sharon Synder. The Matter of Disability: Materiality, Biopolitics, Crip Affect<\/em>. U of Michigan P, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mitchell, Gail, Carla Rice, and Victoria Pileggi. \u201cCo-Emergence: An Art-full Dance of Inquiry into Artists\u2019 Experiences of Making Art.\u201d Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance<\/em>, vol. 23, no. 4, 2018, pp. 563\u201381.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nestruck, Kelly J. \u201cHow Should Media Respond When an Artist Limits Reviews to Critics Who are Indigenous, Black and People of Colour?<\/a>\u201d The Globe and Mail<\/em>, 10 Feb. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parris, Amanda. \u201cCanadian Cultural Institutions Have Silenced Black Voices for Years. Can We Write a New Chapter?<\/a>\u201d CBC Arts<\/em>, 8 June 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paskett, Zoe. \u201c\u2018It\u2019s Not Anarchy, It\u2019s Inclusivity\u2019: How Relaxed Performances Are Opening Up Theatre<\/a>.\u201d London Indoors<\/em>, 3 Apr. 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice. <\/em>Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recollet, Karyn, and Kelly Nestruck. \u201cA Cree Professor and a White Critic Went to Yolanda Bonnell\u2019s bug<\/em>. Then, They Discussed<\/a>.\u201d The Globe and Mail<\/em>, 18 Feb. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice, Carla, Karleen Pendleton Jim\u00e9nez, Elisabeth Harrison, Margaret Robinson, Jen Rinaldi, Andrea LaMarre, and Jill Andrew. \u201cBodies at the Intersection.\u201d Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, <\/em>vol. 40, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1\u201324, forthcoming.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richardson, Laurel, and Adams St. Pierre. Handbook of Qualitative Research<\/em>. Sage Publications, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandahl, Carrie. \u201cThe Tyranny of the Neutral.\u201d Bodies in Commotion Disability and Performance<\/em>, edited Carrie Sandahl and Philip Auslander, <\/em>U of Michigan P, 2005. 255\u201368<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott, Julie-Ann. Embodied Performance as Applied Research, Art and Pedagogy<\/em>. Springer International Publishing, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simpson, Hannah. \u201cTics in the Theatre: The Quiet Audience, the Relaxed Performance, and the Neurodivergent Spectator.\u201d Theatre Topics<\/em>, vol. 28, no. 3, 2018, pp. 227\u201338.        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sins Invalid. Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People. Disability Justice Primer<\/em>. Sins Invalid, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sur, Sanchari. \u201cDecolonizing Theatre Practice as a Playwright and Performer: A Conversation with Yolanda Bonnell<\/a>.\u201d Intermission Magazine<\/em>, 24 Feb. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—. \u201cThe Role of White Media in Perpetuating Online Racism: Redefining the \u2018Hot Potato\u2019 of Yolanda Bonnell\u2019s Request<\/a>.\u201d This Magazine<\/em>, 18 Feb. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Passell Muraille. \u201cbug<\/a>.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

*<\/a>Carla Rice <\/strong>is a Canada Research Chair at the University of Guelph, and founder and academic director of The Re\u2022vision Centre for Art and Social Justice. Rice is carrying out research in conjunction with her Partnership Grant \u201cBodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology, and Access to Life\u201d that seeks to centralize culturally, cognitively, affectively and physically diverse artist practitioners as members of communities whose voices and self-representations have been marginalized from mainstream cultural landscapes and art institutions across Canada. Rice is a co-author of the landmark 2019 report, \u201cRelaxed Performance: Exploring Accessibility in The Canadian Theatre Landscape.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

**<\/a>Chelsea Temple Jones<\/strong> is an Assistant Professor at Brock University. A former Research Associate at Re\u2022Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph, Jones is also a journalist whose work on media coverage of disability and deaf arts appears in Studies for Social Justice <\/em>and International Journal of Education Through Art<\/em>. Jones holds a PhD in Communication and Culture and teaches critical disability studies courses at Ryerson University\u2019s School of Disability Studies. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

***<\/a>Jessica Watkin<\/strong> is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto\u2019s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, with research focusing on Disabled artists creating performance in Canada. She is a Blind interdisciplinary artist, dramaturg, consultant, educator and activist. Her art is nonvisual, tactile and reliant on storytelling. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

****<\/a>Kayla Besse<\/strong> is the Knowledge Mobilization Coordinator at Re\u2022Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph. A trained access activator and relaxed performance specialist, Besse is a co-author of the The British Council\u2019s 2019 report, \u201cRelaxed Performance: Exploring Accessibility in The Canadian Theatre Landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2020 Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/10\/image3-6.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":261,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/documentary-theatre-about-aesthetics-and-politics-an-interview-with-martha-bouziouri\/","url_meta":{"origin":251,"position":0},"title":"Documentary Theatre: About Aesthetics and Politics. Interview with Martha Bouziouri","author":"Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse","date":"October 18, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Savas Patsalidis* . . . It is only when we exit the comfort of approval and embrace the risk of the \u201cdangerous\u201d recipient that real impact is achieved Martha Bouziouri Martha Bouziouri. Photo: Thomas Arsenis Martha Bouziouri is a documentary theatre maker and social anthropologist with a multidisciplinary background.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews"","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/category\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/10\/image4-7.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/10\/image4-7.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/10\/image4-7.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/10\/image4-7.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1053,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/note-from-the-editors\/","url_meta":{"origin":251,"position":1},"title":"Note from the Editors","author":"Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse","date":"January 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Diana Damian Martin,* Anette Therese Pettersen,** Rui Pina Coelho*** This special issue of the section \u201cCritics on Criticism\u201d is a collaboratively edited collection of essays and reflections on theatre and performance criticism for and by young audiences. In our call for papers, we articulated theatre and performance as places of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Critics on Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Critics on Criticism","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/category\/critics-on-criticism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/image3-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/image3-1.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/image3-1.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/image3-1.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":905,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/editors-comment-theatre-criticism-the-day-after\/","url_meta":{"origin":251,"position":2},"title":"Editors\u2019 Comment: Theatre (Criticism) the Day After","author":"Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse","date":"December 14, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Yana Meerzon,* Savas Patsalidis,** Aisling Murphy*** Pandemic: from the Greek \u201c\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd=all\u201d and \u201c\u03b4\u03ae\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2=people\u201d: something which spreads widely, affecting all people.\u00a0 In just ten months the world has changed. New words have come to dominate our daily lives: \u201clockdown,\u201d \u201csocial isolation,\u201d \u201cself-quarantine,\u201d \u201csocial distancing,\u201d \u201cend of humanism,\u201d \u201cstay safe,\u201d \u201conline theatre.\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/image3-6.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/image3-6.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/image3-6.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/image3-6.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":748,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/defeats-to-lament-lives-to-celebrate-fragments-of-a-greek-festival\/","url_meta":{"origin":251,"position":3},"title":"Defeats to Lament, Lives to Celebrate: Fragments of a Greek Festival","author":"Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse","date":"December 10, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Aikaterini Delikonstantinidou* Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Greece, June 5\u2013August 15, 2020. All theatre performances in this year\u2019s festival, or \u201cSubset \u2013 Fragment\u201d were presented in open-air venues. Photo: From the festival\u2019s official website The Athens and Epidaurus Festival had planned to celebrate its 65th anniversary with more than 70 productions,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Performance Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Performance Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/category\/performance-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/12\/Photo-5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/12\/Photo-5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/12\/Photo-5.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/12\/Photo-5.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":484,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/some-reflections-on-theatre-in-a-post-pre-pandemic-moscow\/","url_meta":{"origin":251,"position":4},"title":"Some Reflections on Theatre in a Post (Pre-) Pandemic Moscow","author":"Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse","date":"December 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Alla Shenderova* Trans. Yana Meerzon and Aisling Murphy Abstract From the end of March to the end of April 2020\u2014that is, the first month of quarantine\u2014I wrote three critical interventions which focused on the issue of liveness in theatre. Having watched numerous archival recordings of theatre productions on screen, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Special Topic"","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/featured-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/featured-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/featured-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/11\/featured-2.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":996,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/flight-paths-and-theatre-for-early-years-audiences\/","url_meta":{"origin":251,"position":5},"title":"Flight Paths and Theatre for Early Years Audiences","author":"Carla Rice, Chelsea Temple Jones, Jessica Watkin, Kayla Besse","date":"January 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Robyn Ayles*, Heather Fitzsimmons Frey**, Margaret Mykietyshyn*** Abstract This article proposes using the holistic play-based goals and model of co-inquiry discussed in Flight: Alberta\u2019s Early Learning and Care Framework (2014) as a way to interpret very young children\u2019s responses to theatrical experiences as theatre criticism. The process encourages wondering and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Critics on Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Critics on Criticism","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/category\/critics-on-criticism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/featured.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2021\/01\/featured.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1399,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions\/1399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/22\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}