November 22-23, 2016 THE PROACTIVE ROLE OF LIVE PERFORMANCE - - PDF document

BE SpectACTive ! Barcelona Conference November 22-23, 2016

THE PROACTIVE ROLE OF LIVE PERFORMANCE AUDIENCES: THE BE SPECTACTIVE! PROJECT ANNUAL CONFERENCE

School of Economics & Business – University of Barcelona

• Av. Diagonal 696 - Aula Magna, Building 696 (Metro: Zona Universitària)

Be SpectACTive! is a four-year artistic co-production and research-action project funded by the European Union through the program "Creative Europe 2014-2020". The project is focused on contemporary performing arts and it aims to develop new models of engagement and co-production, where performers, artists and audiences are all involved in the creative and production

• process. The project wants to facilitate the development of sustainable creative

relationships between artists, active audiences and organizations, both on a local and transnational level, through a variety of online and offline initiatives and actions. The key word of the project is active spectatorship. It refers to each mechanism through which audiences, namely spectators or citizens, take on the role of decision makers with regard to the many aspects needed to carry out a theatre

• r dance festival. Be SpectACTive! project aims to give the audience a

decision-making role, providing spectators with individual responsibilities in a common space of creation. In order to achieve this goal, the project member are engaged on 21 new theatre and dance shows, 54 creative residencies, 30

BE SpectACTive ! Barcelona Conference November 22-23, 2016

workshops (with 1.000 local spectators who will choose and program 108 performances) and 4 international conferences and a constant online interaction between artists and web-users. But Be SpectACTive! is also a research project: it will accompany all the previous areas of action in order to evaluate their impact and effectiveness. One central activity of the project is the organization of an annual international

• conference. Its goal is to facilitate in-depth reflection about the cultural

dynamics of projects focused on audience engagement. The Barcelona conference is organized by the BEspectACTive! Partners, and in particular by the Cultural management program of the University of Barcelona, who host the event, and the two other research partners of the project: Fondazione Fitzcarraldo and Université Montpellier. It also receives special support from the Norwegian National knowledge center for cultural industries and Réseau en Scène. The conference wants to be a sharing agora of professionals and performing arts organizations interested on the development on new ways of empowering active citizens. Our starting point is the experience of our project members (Lift festival, London; Kulturno Drustvo B-51, Ljubljana; CapoTrave/Kilowatt Festival, Sansepolcro; Tanec Praha, Praga; Bakelit Multi Art Center, Budapest; York Theatre Royal, York; Radu Stanca, Sibiu; Domino Udruje, Zagreb) and the artists involved in our co-productions, but we want to learn from other experiences and approaches.

BE SpectACTive ! Barcelona Conference November 22-23, 2016

For this reason, the Conference proposes 7 workshops in order to discuss in deep and openly on the main challenges, opportunities and threats of empowering audiences:  The challenges of artistic programming by active spectators  Risks and opportunities of artistic project management by active spectators  Artistic quality and audience empowerment  The interactive role of Creative residences: the artist, the venue and the audience perspectives  Active prosumer involvement in performing arts creation and production  Real democratization (high cultural capital people versus low capital)  The organizational challenge (alliances, staff investment, long term processes…) The role of the plenary sessions is to feet inputs to the discussion. We have invited some of the most renowned academic experts in the field, as well some artists who have conceptualized their artistic interactive experience. We are sure that the Barcelona conference will be a unique opportunity to share opinions, suggestions and new goals with professionals, cultural organizations, researchers, artists, theatres and festivals who are working on active spectatorship and who are experiencing new dialogues between shows and audiences.