audience 1

The time of pandemic and restrictions has required us to rethink assumptions about the very idea of performance. What is this thing we call performance? How does meaningful performance apply to the concerns of now? Can a more environmentally relevant dance be developed? One that is more socially intelligent, more capable of embracing audiences? By questioning how we pay attention at the point of performance, how alive we are to what is actually happening in that moment, we’re rethinking assumptions about how the audience is understood and viewed. This more phenomenological understanding of attention becomes inclusive of audiences, and more experimental forms of engagement need to be explored. The Space project extends the creative process to the involvement of the public, ‘non-dancers’, through experiential sessions in which questions of attention and space are explored by means of embodied work. In tandem, we also turn our attention to the public through additional means of open inquiry.

On the 10th June, a very warm day, Barbara Berti and Simon Rose set off on foot across Berlin’s Templehof, the World War II ex-airfield now an immense, beautiful open space, designated as a park: a haven for wildlife, Berliners and visitors. The aim to spontaneously select individuals and explore: What does attention mean to you? How do you experience attention? The encounter was designed as open to the spectrum of responses and we sought diverse participants. Of course, respondents needed to be available and able to spare the five minutes required for the brief exchange and we’d chosen Tempelhof as it’s commonly used for leisurely activities, as a place to relax.

We approach a man in his thirties. Lying sideways on a rug under the shade, he’d seemed a likely participant but it becomes apparent that he is deeply engaged in studying cardiology, in becoming a doctor. His purpose not relaxation, he was already deeply paying attention to his studies and somewhat bewildered about the purpose and relevance of our questions. However, his decisions regarding attention, space and embodiment offered a source of reflection. With the challenge of learning cardiology he had chosen a prone position in order to give his full attention in the vastness of the tranquil space. While he nonchalantly describes the choice of space as ‘just comfy’ it nevertheless illustrates the ways we find ways to free our bodies and our mind in order to best pay attention in ways that may not necessarily be that conscious.

Our second encounter, with a woman in her thirties, presented a direct connection between attention, the sensorial and the body. With bare shoulders and total-block protection beneath an intense sun she balanced carefully on roller skates and reported how her attention was in the enjoyment of the sun on her skin. These brief encounters presented connections between the body and attention in ways that had not been predicted, providing novel ideas that can inform and assist the manner in which we engage audiences. Deepening audiences’ awareness of attention, as a theme in itself, assumptions about how we ‘place’ audiences could be re-thought. How would it be if audiences were invited to recline on the grass beneath a tree’s shade? Orto experience a performance while they roller skate on a beautiful, warm day, with the sun on their skin? Or, invited to recline on floor cushions in order to best give their attention in the course of a performance that asks those in attendance to investigate their experience of attention? Could this enable the deepening of a more experiential, participatory audience experience of attention and states?

In a forthright manner, our third encounter, a young skateboarding woman, immediately reported the experience of attention as embodied. Perhaps because she was at Tempelhof to engage in her clearly dedicated practice of skateboarding. She tied her experience of attention to temporality – how her attention is dependent upon an ever changing ‘now’, not in a static state. She spoke of her body as a guide for attention with the mind. She described how opening her arms and reaching upwards changed her attention– as she realised there was more to pay attention to ‘here, and here’.

The fourth encounter, with a Spanish flamenco guitarist who was learning German on headphones, also immediately situated attention as temporal. He reflected the musician’s act of playing an instrument, the need for presence in the moment of performance. The experience of ‘now’ as embodied. He made a correspondence between the embodied presence of the raised arms and being in the present where she assigned the future to the head.

The fifth encounter was accompanying his young son and responded by saying that his attention was very wide and when pressed told us that his attention was in ‘taking care’ of his son. He objected to the suggestion that he raise arms in the air (in order to discuss how attention may become altered through this additional embodied aspect – something we did with all participants). However, he offered two poetic images of attention: ‘I pay attention to you, so we flow together’. As a theme of performance and attention this idea of shared attention, ‘flow together’, or attention created together can be fundamentally rich – and contribute to ways of thinking about where attention lies in group interaction – the social purpose of attention. And when asked how he experienced attention he responded ‘as a breeze … you feel it but you cannot see it’. ‘The breeze’ resonates with the previous participants’ ideas of attention as a moving phenomenon.

In these small, initial steps of enquiry each encounter has provided fresh perspectives into the ways we are thinking about attention, these will contribute to the development of the project’s practice. For us, the discussion of attention has become familiar, while for these participants, the very idea of stopping for a moment to reflect upon what attention is was new and at times bewildering. In the process, we are also already asking participants to move into a different ‘space’, one that involves reflection, a different consideration of the body.

We will be repeating this activity in different settings, establishing further diversity in response – seeking new reflections that may bring fresh insights. While the second phase of research will involve participants in embodied activity through which questions regarding attention will be posed by means of somatic practices and some of those encountered on Tempelhof have been invited to participate in these sessions. It will be interesting to discover and compare how participants reflect on attention when engaged in more somatic practice.