ABSTRACT
Professional dance making, particularly in the contemporary dance context, increasingly involves practices that share information about creative processes with various audiences. The scholarly inquiry surrounding, and in some cases contributing to, these practices investigates the methods employed and the effects that these experiences have on the way that audiences anticipate performance, make meaning and experience relationships with choreographers and dancers. This chapter unpacks audience behaviours at open rehearsals with Sydney Dance Company and The Australian Ballet in 2013. Drawing from Caroline Heim’s theory of audiences as ‘performers,’ the chapter identifies a heightened audience performance of attentive listening, resulting from the audiences’ interpretation of the new relational environment of the rehearsal studio and awareness of their impact on the creative processes. These cases demonstrate highly adaptable audiences and highlight confidence as a contributor to pleasurable audience performances.
