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Thesis Updated 110919.Pdf (2.502Mb) The Morning After (the night before): Emancipating Spectators in Participatory Live Art Submitted by Kelly Lisa Jordan to De Montfort University as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama and Performance April 2017 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. ......................................................................................... Abstract This thesis develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of spectator-participation in live art by examining the performance practices of Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s La Pocha Nostra, Marina Abramović, and Gob Squad. It explores the potentialities and limitations of participation from all sides of the performance border, drawing on my experiences as a performing-spectator, watching-spectator, and as an artist-collaborator with La Pocha Nostra. Unravelling the relationship between these roles, it reveals how participation can create a new hierarchy amongst spectators. The thesis offers a new way of looking at the phenomenology of participatory live art by determining these encounters as a complex network of contradictory and interdependent relations, underlined by the “paradox of participation”: the duality of holding the position of both performer and spectator at the same time. Accordingly, it argues that these performances constitute a “symmathesy” of participation, to use Nora Bateson’s term, which should be viewed as a whole experience rather than as a series of parts. Advancing on from “the emancipated spectator”, as outlined by Jacques Rancière, the study reconsiders its meaning within live art. In doing so, it demonstrates how ritual, presence and ethics converge to underpin the transformative and emergent processes that foster and manage participation, while acknowledging the way that imposed sanctions serve to uphold the performance. Moreover, it maintains that spectator- participation has developed into a practice in its own right, and charts the birth of a new breed of spectator who anticipates the possibility of co-creation. It recognises several emerging types of participant, namely the “expert participant-spectator” and the more transgressive “dis-spectator”. The thesis establishes that participation can offer spectators a licence to act in ways outside of their everyday political and social reality, at the same time; it calls attention to the lack of consideration and after-care given to spectators post-participation. 2 Table of Contents Page No List of Illustrations 7 Acknowledgements 8 Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 The First Encounter: La Pocha Nostra’s Ex Centris (2003) 9 1.2 General Introduction and Aims 12 1.3 Methodology 16 1.4 Why Live Art? 23 1.5 Tracing the Origins of Audience Participation in Live Art 25 1.6 Introduction to Case Studies: Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s La Pocha 34 Nostra, Marina Abramović, and Gob Squad 1.7 Literature Survey on Participation 41 1.8 Map of Thesis and Chapter Overview 51 Chapter Two: The Birth of the Participant-Spectator 2.1 The Second Encounter: La Pocha Nostra’s Mapa/Corpo 2 (2006) ‘Community Rituals for the New Millennium' 59 2.2 Introduction 60 2.3 Towards a Definition 63 2.4 Levels of Participation 67 2.5 The Form of Participation 70 2.6 The Political Status of Participation 78 2.7 The Emancipated Spectator 80 3 2.8 The Transformative Power of Participation 89 2.9 Radical Democratic Participation 96 2.10 Ontological Participation 98 2.11 Conclusion 102 Chapter Three: Border Crossing and “Interactive Rituals” 3.1. The Third Encounter: La Pocha Nostra’s Untitled Performance at MOCA, Tucson, Arizona (2007) 107 3.2 Introduction 110 3.3 The Paradox of Participation 113 3.4 Desires and Resistances 119 3.5 Expert Participant-Spectators 123 3.6 La Pocha Nostra’s Emancipated Spectator 126 3.7 Interactive Rituals 129 3.8 The Rules of the Game 133 3.9 The Space for Participation 138 3.10 Fostering Participation 145 3.11 Spectator Roles in Participation 153 3.12 Consequences and Potentialities 160 3.13 Conclusion 167 Chapter Four: The Spectator is Present 4.1 The Fourth Encounter: Marina Abramović’s 512 Hours (2014) 172 4.2 Introduction 174 4.3 The “I was there” of Participation 178 4 4.4 Attending to Agency 184 4.5 The Presence of Risk 189 4.6 Having Presence 195 4.7 Embodied Presence 201 4.8 Presence and Black Holes 207 4.9 The Phenomenology of Co-presence in Participation 210 4.10 Conclusion 217 Chapter Five: The Ethics of Participation in an ‘Ethically Imperfect World’ 5.1 The Fifth Encounter: Gob Squad’s Western Society (2015) 221 5.2 Introduction 224 5.3 Towards an Ethics of Participation 228 5.4 Delegated Performance as a Luxury Game 233 5.5 Delegated Performance as a Projection Screen 241 5.6 The Sixth Encounter: War and Peace (2016) 248 5.7 The “spectator within” and the spectator out “front” 250 5.8 Ethics as Encounter 259 5.9 Participation Gone Wrong: The “errant spectator”, the “mis-spectator”, and the “dis-spectator” 263 5.10 Conclusion 269 Chapter Six: Final Conclusions 6.1 Introduction 271 6.2 Researcher and Narrator 272 6.3 The Rise in Participatory Live Art 274 5 6.4 Emancipating Spectators 276 6.5 A “Symmathesy” (living system) of Participation in Live Art 280 6.6 Spectator-Participation as a Practice 281 6.7 Presence and Ethics 283 6.8 Future Areas for Investigation 285 Bibliography 287-307 Appendix A Transcript of Skype Interview with Sharon Smith from Gob Squad 1-14 6 List of Illustrations Page No First Encounter 1: The “final image” of Ex Centris 11 Second Encounter 2: An interactive ritual to decolonise a body “of color” 59 3: An interactive ritual with Roberto Sifuentes as a human altar 60 Third Encounter 4: Twenty-first century blonde-“bomb”shell 107 5: A participant-spectator in the arms of “mass destruction” 108 6: A participant-spectator post-participation in the human mural 109 7: A tableaux vivant with collaborators 149 8: A tableaux vivant with an upside down American flag 150 Fourth Encounter 9: The queue for Marina Abramović’s 512 Hours 172 10: The platform 174 Fifth Encounter 11: The duality of live and mediated performing-spectators 245 12: The shared curtain call 247 Sixth Encounter 13: The salon 249 14: The audition for the role of Pierre Bezuk 257 7 Acknowledgements I wish to give thanks to my dedicated supervisor, Ramsay Burt, who has been on this journey with me from the start. I thank Ramsay wholeheartedly for his incredible knowledge, insight, and academic guidance. Special mention goes to my second supervisor, Claire Warden, for her encouraging and perceptive comments on draft chapters, and invaluable support in the final days of this process. I am also very grateful to a supportive and inspiring examination team: Jen Harvie, John Freeman, and Alissa Clarke. Thanks also to Simon Featherstone and Helena Goldwater for their advice and suggestions in developing certain ideas. I cannot thank Marie Hay enough for her understanding, encouragement, and friendship throughout my study. I also wish to thank my colleagues in the School of Visual and Performing Arts, particularly the Drama team, for their support. I am indebted to the many practitioners whose work and reflections informed my thinking, especially La Pocha Nostra for letting me be part of their creative process, and Sharon Smith for providing a unique insight into Gob Squad’s work during our interview. Thanks also to Mireia Aragay and Enric Monforte, who invited me to present my research at The German Society for Contemporary Drama in English (CDE) conference on ‘Theatre and Spectatorship’ in Barcelona (2015). I am extremely grateful for the emotional support and encouragement of my wonderful friends and family. Deepest thanks and love to my parents, Stephen and Christina Jeffries. But most of all, I want to thank my amazing husband Steve and my children, Eva, Skylar and Cassian, for putting up with me studying and getting stressed, especially towards the end. This thesis is dedicated to them. 8 Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 The First Encounter: La Pocha Nostra’s Ex Centris (2003) It is March 2003. I am attending an exhibition entitled Live Culture at the Tate Modern, in partnership with the Live Art Development Agency. It is here that I have my first encounter with spectator-participation in the work of Guillermo Gómez-Peña1 and his performance group, La Pocha Nostra. As I step into the “total” environment2 of Ex- Centris (A Living Diorama of Fetish-ized Others), I witness a series of intercultural specimens displayed on raised platforms of varying heights. The exhibits parody and subvert colonial modes of representation, enhanced by a heady mix of live and recorded music, multiple video projections, lighting effects, embalmed animals, and old- fashioned and popular culture artefacts. In this heightened state I notice Gómez-Peña attracting a small crowd of spectators around an emerging diorama, as he attempts to construct a “human mural”3 with the more adventurous audience members (See Gómez- Peña 2005: 83-84, and 119-120). He beseeches onlookers: “Is there anyone who is willing to co-create with me?” and I find myself drawn into his commanding presence. In an uncharacteristic moment of spontaneity, I volunteer to participate. It was with some trepidation that I left my fellow spectators and made my way to the raised platform. I knew that in crossing the border4 I had entered into an invisible contract and I was wary of them taking more than I was willing to give.
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