ABSTRACT

Many participatory and immersive performances casted spectators in an ambulatory role. Spectators could be seen drifting across immersive, sometimes labyrinthine performance installations, or navigating through urban environments, guided by performers, audio tapes, iPads, cell phones or other mobile devices. Immersion describes the sense of being engulfed by a performance environment, or an experience of being absorbed into a performative situation. To approach immersive theatre as a flexible performer-spectator-space constellation conjures up associations with installation art. Immersive theatre often bears resemblance to installation art, in the sense that many art installations require visitors to enter a space, to move around, to do something in order to make an installation ‘work’ or to provide input in order to complete the work. Theatre has a rich history of addressing audiences, in terms of how audiences are placed in space and how they are addressed by performers.