PROGRAMA DE DESGRAVACION ARANCELARIA DE PANAMÁ
HILADOS DE ALGODÓN (EXCEPTO EL HILO DE COSER) CON UN CONTENIDO DE ALGODÓN
In considering the various forms of engagement that I observed throughout the three performances of Magic Box, I formed several conclusions relating back to my research question: what, in practice, does it mean to center very young people in a TVY performance? First, I have come to believe that rebellious young audience engagement is a valuable and necessary form of engagement from young people. I expected that there would be a wide variety of ways in which young people engaged with the TVY performance. However, I did not understand the relationship and tensions between young people’s enthusiastic, active, and often rebellious forms of participation and the adult audience’s hesitancy to support this engagement. I was particularly surprised when I observed this in myself. I recognized in adult audience members the impulse to intervene when young people participated with the performance in ways that they might have perceived to be disruptive, rebellious, or vocally loud, specifically when that participation disrupted the action of the performance itself. As I have engaged in the writing process of this document, I have come to realize that centering a young audience does not necessarily mean giving total agency to the young audience to interact in ways that halt the forward momentum of the performance. On the other hand, I learned how sensitive I was as a director, observer, and audience member and that I experienced tension around wanting to center my artistic vision of how the youth audience should engage with Magic Box.
Although I initially thought The Austin Preschool audience was not engaged in the performance, watching the videos and reading the observation reports revealed that most of the students were both engaged and eager to participate in elements of the Magic
Box performance. However, the participatory behaviors that many youth audience
members at the Austin Preschool enacted (i.e. chanting at the actors, pulling at the paper nest, rolling or throwing their wooden balls onto the stage) were not behaviors that supported the momentum of the performance. The frustration I experienced, alongside the adult actors and the Austin Preschool teachers, arose from the absence of clear framework for the performance’s expectations of audience participation. The teachers at the Austin Preschool were able to wrangle the young people on their playground, and my interest in troubling that position was actually counter to their jobs. As a parent or caregiver, there are rules and expectations (both overtly constructed and socially agreed upon) for how young people should act in a theatre space. I understand more clearly how young audiences and their adults are willing to participate and may need to know the “rules” of engagement either as we begin or as we move through the performance. I am curious about the rules of place and space, and how those rules or expectations ultimately inform behavior habits that might transfer into participation in a performance. Through my analysis of both performances, but looking particularly at the Austin Preschool performance, I also observed a connection between the rules of the space (preschool), and the role of the adult audience member in the school environment. The adults in the Austin Preschool removed the children and disciplined the children as though they were in a traditional school classroom with no acceptance of disruptive behavior (when that
behavior looked like audience members “not watching” or “not watching quietly.”) Additionally, the adults in the space (teachers, parents, actors, and myself) appeared to feel responsible for upholding traditional school behavior and performance watching practices (i.e. making the children sit quietly, and listen attentively). I suspect that if I were to provide the teachers, the actors, and the young audience members with a clearer expectation of the rules for the performance space, I would have felt less anxiety over how the young people engaged with the performance. What might a performance of
Magic Box look if it anticipated “disruptive” behavior or engagement from young
audience participants? If I built strategic invitations for active engagement with the performance to exist without disrupting the experiences of other audience participants or the flow of the show, would I be centering the experience of young people and relying on my own expertise as a maker? How might I rely on the adults in a TYV performance space co-construct a safe environment for young people to exhibit their impulses through play?
Upon my reflection and analysis of the Magic Box performances, I conclude that a major space for growth exists in distinguishing between free play and a play. In theory, I assumed that by performing a theatre piece that reflected (i.e. drew inspiration from) preschool play, young people would recognize and engage with the performance by watching attentively. I assumed that the young audiences would engage actively in the performance only when the adult performers gave the young people cues, and that any outliers would not disrupt the overall flow of the performance. In the UT performances, I was able to rely on the theatre space to help the audience (both adults and young people)
focus their attention on the performance. I also saw and understood how the adults in the performance space influenced some behavior of the young people. At the Austin Preschool performance space, I saw how the performance (whether I meant for it to or not) lacked the structures it needed to help audience members understand how to participate within the performance environment. I also learned how important it is to lay out clear expectations for how I expect all audience members to engage with the performance.
As I move into the final concluding chapter of this document, I expand on my learning from the previous chapters and move toward recommendations for addressing and bridging the gap between art making and education in a TVY making context.