ABSTRACT
My inclusion of audience participation in spoken word performance has a considered and deliberate impact both on audiences and on me as a performer. I analyse the concept of audience participation and suggest that it can exist as a transaction of power between performer and audience member. I identify three main aims for why I include audience engagement and I use my solo shows, The Geography of Me, How To Starve An Artist, and The Empathy Experiment to investigate how they achieve significant impacts. I describe my process of structuring the shows in ways that enable trust, connection and reflection between myself and the audience. Drawing on these experiences I demonstrate that strategic and conscientious facilitation of participatory elements in my spoken word performances can nudge audiences out of passive states of observation, trigger critical engagement, and challenge me to stay present and connected as a performer.
