Sighted (2009) Audience as Performer

How do we know what an audience feels about a performance? How does that information feed back into the work?
This paper will examine these questions drawing upon 80 performances of Sighted, a 16-minute performance installation. It was first performed at The Place, London and most recently in 2015 for Collect Art Fair at Saatchi Gallery. Other venues have included Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Royal Opera House. It is a collaborative, innovative work bringing together movement and design, and highlighting the relationship between performer and audience in a direct and fresh way.
Sighted is an intimate performance concerned with looking and seeing. The solo dancer moves around a carpet of mirror strips occupied by a standing audience of 15 to 18 people. The audience’s attention is drawn to an acute awareness of place and the present moment, a feeling of uncertainty, participation, duality and wonder. There is a balance between a sense of isolation and a sense of community, sound and silence, movement and stillness. Sighted invites sensitivity to temperature, touch, breath, physical adjustments, shifting focus, and the texture of materials.
An important part of the project has been the comments books, where we have collected immediate and intuitive reactions of individuals. These, together with documentation of the dancers’ responses to different settings and audiences form the basis of this research into the impact of place and context on the actions of and in turn experience for viewers. We would like to share our findings at the conference.