ABSTRACT
Play is, conventionally, divided between rule based and spontaneous play. Rules create space to be safely spontaneous, while spontaneity always kicks back against the frames that hold it. All of the performance work in the discussion so far could be re-thought in terms of play. Game performances can stimulate both intimate interactions between players, and moments of intense involvement that belie the supposed triviality of game play. Autonomy in enactivism is a quality attributed to minds, in common with other living systems, of the way they are coupled with their environments. The mind is a ‘self-regulating’ system that arises from organism-environment coupling. An occurrent art plays us in multiple ways: setting its orchestra of interacting elements in motion, playing participants as instruments; it also plays us through engaging us in its game, coming to life through our structured but unscripted action.
