Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nibbelink, Liesbeth Groot

Titel

Radical Intimacy: Ontroerend Goed meets The Emancipated Spectator

Ist Teil von

• Contemporary theatre review, 2012-08, Vol.22 (3), p.412-420

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Journals Auto-Holdings Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This article discusses intimate performer-spectator relationships in the performance The Smile Off Your Face by the Flemish company Ontroerend Goed. In this one-to-one performance a blindfolded spectator encounters various performers in different scenes. In addition to exploring these encounters in relation to the concept of intimacy this article also stages an encounter with Jacques Rancière's essay The Emancipated Spectator. Despite the differences between Rancière's observations and Ontroerend Goed's theatre of experience, both share the acknowledgment of the heterogeneity of spectators and explore the quality of connectivity between spectators and a performance. By staging an encounter between Rancière and Ontroerend Goed, this article aims to explore the value and meaning of distance and closeness in the theatre. These are understood as two inherent corporeal and spatial qualities which are used to further unpack the concept of intimacy. By investigating and negotiating performer-spectator relationships through intimate experience, The Smile exposes a field of performance that questions spectatorship by focusing on single or isolated spectators and their sensorial experience. Over the last decade this type of performance has been referred to as the 'theatre of experience' in the Netherlands and Flanders. According to Maaike Bleeker, a focus on embodied spectating increases attentiveness and awareness of perception. The idea of attentiveness is then related to Alan Read's Theatre, Intimacy and Engagement. While acknowledging the difference with Read's trajectory, the article argues that in The Smile, through its focus on spatially and corporeally oriented spectatorship, the potential for connectivity and engagement in performance emerges. (Author abstract)