Upon deciding on the waiting room formation for our performance, we have decided that we want to control the audience by using envelopes. We really like this idea but have decided to explore other ways of doing this. In Rotazaza’s work ‘Etiquette’ they used headphones and seated the participants in pairs in a coffee shop. Each participant would have different instructions in their headphones which would tell them when and how to interact with the other audience member.This results in the participants creating a meeting between them that they have no control over. Rotazaza describe the experience as “expos[ing] human communication at both its rawest and most delicate” (Rotazaza, 2007)

Another performance where they use headphones as a way of controlling participants is ‘Radio Ballet’ by LIGNA. This performance consisted of audience members turning up to a location wearing headphones that were tuned to a certain radio station. Instructions were then given over the radio and the audience members completed the movements. This once again takes audience participation to a new level. The audience become the performers rather than an audience in the most basic form.

We really like the idea of using headphones and this is something that we would be able to achieve at the grandstand, but this would mean having an audience of only 2 people or just 2 channels of instructions. The minimum audience we are looking at having is eight all with different instructions as this is how many people we currently need to make our piece effective. The concept of the instructions will work in the same way but for our piece the envelopes will be better suited.

References-

Rotazaza,2007. Rotatzaza’s Etiquette [online]  Avaliable at: <http://www.rotozaza.co.uk/ETQ_press_release.pdf> (Accessed 30 March 2014)

Radiodispertion, 2008. Radio Ballet Leipzig Main Station Part 1 [online], Avaliable at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3pfa5QNZI> (Accessed 30 March 2014)