MESOC Serapeum | Where culture meets AI

Id		124
Author		Bonet, L., ; Calvano, G., ; Carnelli, L., ; Dupin-Meynard, F., ; Négrier, M.,
Title		Be SpectACTive! Challenging Participation in Performing Arts
Reference		Bonet, L.; Calvano, G.; Carnelli, L.; Dupin-Meynard, F. and Négrier, M. (Eds.) (2018). Be SpectACTive! Challenging Participation in Performing Arts. Perugia: Editoria & Spettacolo.
Link to article		https://www.bespectactive.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Be-SpectACTive.pdf
Abstract		Be SpectACTive! is a European project based on audience development, involving organisations working on active spectatorship in contemporary performing arts. Its members are European festivals, theatres, universities and research centres. During four years, the network implemented various actions willing to develop audiences and citizen participation in artistic choices and creation processes, including participatory programming groups, participative residencies, and digital participation. These projects were accompanied by an action research and several practical and theoretical exchanges, including international conferences. This book intends to share the Be SpectACTive! collective adventure, giving a voice to artistic directors, artists, participants and researchers who have been involved in the projects, describing, through case studies and reflections, their successes, limits and perspectives.

Results:

Candidate transition variables
This experience enriched me more and more every time: it makes me feel more confident with myself and with my potentiality. .
Beyond the connections with individuals, some residencies offer the opportunity to build new links between the organisation and specific social groups or institutions (for example, partnerships with neighbourhood associations, community groups or social institutions). .
Social networks became also a way to build up a bridge between digital and real communities. .
Be SpectACTive! is a network that uses its resources to facilitate that kind of support to artists and organisations within the project. .
In a view of marketing specialists, artistic and cultural value cocreation activities are subsequently undertaken by stakeholders such as patrons and funding bodies. .
On the other hand, new technologies contribute to the aesthetics of cultural projects. .
Social cohesion Social cohesion refers to the extent of connectedness and solidarity among groups in society. .
They are effective in developing community skills, capabilities and creativity. .
It was based on a residency program aimed to support the artists and their producers, while nourishing their artistic processes thanks to the interaction with local communities. .
All in all, I am very grateful for the opportunity to participate in such programs which bring social benefit, develop the audiences taste and understanding of the content. .
In this way, each partner can contribute to the creation of the event, that also becomes an opportunity to strengthen the relations inside the network. .
That some members of the community can help their favourite place or event by offering this service is not only civic engagement, but also a way to feel part of the project. .
The participants find that working together across such a broad age group is in itself supportive. .
In this case, desirable results would be ideally building stronger and more meaningful relationships with the community, generating a sense of belonging with the artistic environment and promoting awareness, responsibility and active citizenship. .
The other social dimension of the participatory turn concerns artistic production. .
Many initiatives are emerging today in the form of spectator collectives, citizen commissions for works, and co-creation through artistic and participatory residencies, to give art a new social vocation. .
Our aim was to deepen the engagement among artists, cultural organisations and audience, thanks to a methodology that would give audiences real agency and a sense of personal investment in the development of the cultural activities within their context. .
In our vision, we intended to create a context where the active participation of spectators would be emboldened, and the artists creative work would be given potentially useful input. .
On the other hand, the activities done highlighted that culture is partly a testing ground for social development. .
Those creative residencies were defined as crucial for the relation among local audiences and for the artists to get in contact with different cultural contexts. .
On the other hand, those creative residencies showing real interest in audience involvement end up with great experiences on both sides (artists and participants). .
A clear concept, creative participatory strategy, and a certain artistic quality are needed for a project to succeed in Be SpectACTive!.
That method proved to be a fundamental tool for artists and a very resourceful way of strengthening the local artistic community. .
That was a positive experience either for our organisation and the artists participating in this programme, as it opened a new way of thinking about artists position and role, and allowed them to think of deeper and longer-term connections for the potential participants of their projects. .
Also, this type of participatory project can expand the artistic scope of interest and open new opportunities for artists to rethink their practices whether current or future. .
That is certainly a chance to foster a deeper understanding of artistic processes and, hopefully, to attract a stronger interest for the arts by a wide range of audiences. .
Audiences are creating, adapting and manipulating as well as appreciating art and culture. .
For others a more cultured and widely available audience it has become common in this region to offer the opportunity to participate in activities of greater cultural value, including interaction with artists. .
For some directors, its about deepening the artistic experience and understanding the process of enjoying a show. .
First evidences suggest that this can be an effective way of allowing people to discover or rediscover their own creativity and to shape local cultural opportunities to be more reflective. .
The importance of offering communities the possibility to participate in art, that not only celebrates their history and heritage but also allows them to engage critically with the real issues facing them, cannot be underestimated. .
It is in the process of transforming how its community engages with values and facilitates cultural activity. .
The participation opportunities provided by TakeOver are both meaningful and impactful, encompassing a broad scope of choice for people to actively engage as both artist and social citizen. .
They aim to nurture in their community a deeper appreciation of the arts and to offer various ways in which the community can express the value perceived of the arts around them. .
This reflection concerns in particular participants, whose expectations and potential benefits are determined by the way in which the participative proposal encounters their previous social trajectory more precisely, their level of cultural capital in relation to artistic practices and knowledge. .
When this happens, it can be an opportunity for venues to connect with new social fields and contribute to the diversification of audiences, but also to stimulate innovation and partnerships, enlarging the functions and the connections of an artistic institution. .
Creative residencies are also the ideal ground to connect artists with different contexts, scales and practices and to experiment forms and models of active engagement, giving artists the challenge to experiment new creative processes, which can be nourished by the active involvement of participants. .
Cultural development The process of enabling cultural activities, including the arts, towards the realisation of a desired future, particularly of a culturally rich and vibrant community (Cultural Development Network, n.d.). .
We saw the project as an opportunity to educate our team more in these areas as well as to create new opportunities for artists within our influence. .
That shows that collaborations between different cultural contexts can work rather well providing that there is a critical mass of cultural general shared places, which enables the dialogue between local community and visiting artists. .
Working with audiences is not a one-way thing: it is about building relationships to help each other. .
These materials are also used to spread information, topics, to start developing a sense of belonging among people with the same interests, passions, habits and to generate curiosity. .
The participatory activity initiated by Be SpectACTive! helped us to reach a wider perspective on how to involve the audience and realise interchanges among artists, audience and cultural institution. .
In recent years, the number of participatory or collective creation shows has increased considerably with the aim of integrating diverse groups into the community. .
Audience development is a strategic, dynamic and interactive process of making the arts widely accessible. .
Its political project deals with inventing a new social use of art, by offering to citizens the possibility to express social problems or even by commissioning artists to give an answer to such problems. .
We believe that spectators point of view can contribute to widening the artists gaze, and therefore to enrich their visions during the creation process. .
The artists had the opportunity to experiment new forms of artistic creation, working with different audiences and communities and to test a different perception of their own social needs and environments, having a more complex dialogue with them. .
We wanted to be involved in sharing practices between different partners and we were interested specifically in the area of challenging artists to engage and even involve public in different creative ways. .
It is an opportunity to reflect on the mission of the institution, on the different possible ways to achieve its goals, to connect with audiences and with artistic proposals. .
On the other hand, participatory residencies can be seen as a mean to reach other goals than merely creation, such as: opening the doors of the artistic process to audiences; spreading artistic resources and transmitting the will to create to amateurs; helping people express themselves; renewing a venues or an artists audience; democratising the cultural institutions or empowering audiences, the finality being often the process itself. .
We would like to work on exploring these options and making sure that audience and participants feel that they get something more tangible, or have access to some unique or particular experiences provided by the creative process. .
Through the creative process, carving his ways in the search of pure essence, exploring the universal human sensations and our unique perceptions of life and art, he also served as a guide for us to: help us understand ourselves in our pursuit of dreams show how art can open us up after the life-long oppression by society allow us to understand the multiplicity of choices and possibilities we always have. .
The level of these potential transformations depends on the type of interaction set up with participants (the possibility for the participants to express themselves freely) and the artists permeability to their influence. .
In this last perspective, arts are limited means of contributing to emancipation, but by broadening creative expressions to new people, and thus producing new perceptions of individuals on themselves and on the society, they participate to the transformation of social and political representations. .
Is it necessary to continue mobilising categories such as artistic quality, when trying to invent new practices and new relationships between artists and society? .
The other side of the artistic freedom We started from the assumption that creating via new technology allows artists to push the boundaries of the possible and designs transformative experiences for audiences and also for artists to get inspired and to discuss about artistic and creative processes. .
The resulting group of artists was made of individuals actively engaged in experimenting and testing new ways of production, trying to find new sources of inspiration for their creative process and searching for meaningful ways to involve audiences. .
They are conscious their feedbacks could be useful for the artists, helping them improving or changing something in the creation of their shows (some of the submitted works are still in progress and an external point of view could be useful to the artists to improve them). .
They are: Inspire: be inspired by a diverse range of professional art; Shape: shape what we offer and what we are; Make: make art with us; Share: actively seek new ways to reach and connect with the wider community. .
If the goal is rather to contribute to artistic empowerment and to reach more diversified audiences, then it is necessary to make efforts to get in touch with them and propose experiences that suit them. .
Creative Residencies are the privileged corner both to support the work of young and innovative European artists and to promote their interaction with local audiences, testing new and experimental ways to engage with them, according with the topic of the work, the target audiences to involve, the journey developed by the artists. .
The Action Research gave an opportunity to analyse a co-cre-ative approach in an international context, giving artist the challenge to experiment new forms of artistic creation, working with different audiences and communities, relating with different organisations in countries with distinguishing social, cultural, economic and political characteristics. .
The project offered us also the possibility to investigate the reason why and the implication for an artist to encompass with a co-creative process, trying to analyse how participation can shape artistic creation and how the active involvement in the creative process can shape the way in which audiences take part in creative activities. .
This way of making art gives space and opens the door for discoveries and surprises on the level of the arts and on the level of personal experiences. .
Participatory residencies impacts on those who make them Audience development and cultural democracy From an organisations point of view, most of the expected effects of residencies relate to audience development classic goals and strategies: increasing audiences (attracting audiences with the same socio-demographic profile as the current audience); deepening relationship with the audiences (enhancing the experience of the current audiences in relation to a cultural event and/or encouraging them to discover related or even nonrelated, more complex art forms, thus fostering loyalty and return visits); diversifying audiences (attracting people with a different socio-demographic profile from that of the current audiences, including people with no previous contact with the art) (Bollo et al., 2017). .
Of course, great art and cultural experiences are still being created and appreciated by audiences in traditional formats, but we cannot ignore that right now audience expectations are changing and so are the practices of artists, creators and curators. .
How can the arts and culture institutions ensure a diversity of modes, stories, expressions, events and projects that reflects different societies in e.g. Copenhagen and finds resonance in their respective communities? .
And it involves a broad spectrum of skills and knowledge to enable increased access to arts and culture to the widest range of people and social groups particularly among traditionally underrepresented or excluded groups. .
Now its not about targeting and audience segmentation alone, it is largely about how to open cultural institutions and how to create the basis for a more dynamic and cohesive cultural democracy, in which different social groups can be covered and included within the cultural offerings. .
Art residencies emphasise the importance of meaningful and multilayered cultural exchange and immersion into another culture. .
It aims at engaging individuals and communities in experiencing, enjoying, participating in and valuing the arts through various means available today for cultural operators, from digital tools to volunteering, from cocreation to partnerships. .
Other venues and festivals place the public and the local community at the centre of their cultural project, either for ideological reasons, as part of the organisations mission, or to legitimise themselves in their social environment. .
They felt the importance to create a new artistic work that told stories of, or was inspired by, the people, their stories, feelings, fears, ambitions, etc. .
It is evident that what it is important is creating art that is meaningful and relevant to people; that speaks of their lives, their stories and their experiences. .
It is evident that what it is important is to create art that is meaningful and relevant to people; that speaks of their lives, their stories and their experiences. .
However, the residency process benefited the artists in their production, and helped the performers to discuss with new audiences while processing the images and the messages picked up from that non-verbal and highly abstract work. .
Therefore, finding common interests and points between visiting artists and local communities in a wider spectrum of social, economic, political or other spheres should lead to more successful and fruitful participatory processes. .
To achieve that goal originally we set up a web platform where audiences and artists could meet, discuss, interact, find new ways to go deeper into the topic of the performance in its making; a virtual space where images, video, pictures, text messages, questions could be mixed up in order to find easy and intuitive challenges for developing relationships and engaging audiences and users. .
In any case, it must be borne in mind that the degree of personal development or the skills acquired through participation do not only favor the participating citizens, but also the artistic professionals who are willing to interact with them, and the community as a whole. .
This operation can be a great opportunity for artists and venues to create closer relationships with their audiences, to be more attentive to their feedbacks, to be enriched by a less top-down and more collaborative relation. .
According to several arts audience research academics, our goal should be to empower audiences to engage in constructive and pleasurable dialogue about the arts. .
We would like them feel that this program is doing something for them and that this added value is bringing new possibilities, new opportunities for their creation, for their creative life. .
The first beneficiary is the group itself, because through this process those people go much deeper into the product and the artistic experience. .
But they also want to grow as individuals, as artists and professionals and prove that they developed a rich understanding of the arts landscape in York and beyond. .
Therefore, we could say that these experiences are at least looking like an artistic empowerment, potentially driving to a political empowerment. .
But the development of these tools allows participants to acquire new abilities, or skills. .
This process enriches humanly and personally who is taking part in the project: I felt more confident with myself: thanks to this experience I think I have developed greater critical sense. .
Also, artistic quality can be related to perceived success and positive image generation. .
It was also an opportunity to open their own creative process to a specific target of local citizens, who could contribute to nourish the artists creative process. .
We already had some positive experience in exposing artists to new environment, so we were excited to see what will Be SpectACTive! project bring. .
In this case, insisting on participation can alter the conditions of artistic creation, at least as it is classically perceived through the judgement on its artistic quality or professional dimension, but it can also argue for a new definition of artistic quality, depending on other values. .
We found that type of support is potentially much impactful for many artists, as it gives them the chance to do their work and research at their own pace and based on their own needs, not only for satisfying the project and needs of the organisation needing to execute a certain cooperation programme. .
Most therefore consider this experience as a learning process about what creating could be or even about what being an artist could be. .
Some others got the will to create their own pieces and artistic projects. .
This is the power of working in a participatory way, which is still hyperlocal but it is thus connected outwards to artists and ideas beyond the local community. .
For some artists the project was also an opportunity to make unexpected discoveriess. .
But a more fundamental issue is whether the sector needs to reevaluate its artistic offer, including the concepts of high quality and diverse art. .
The composition and the experience of artistic teams could help: in fact, the participatory capacity could be increased by integrating new skills and profiles into the team. .
Therefore, the community manager or Audience Developer is someone who is active in the involvement of the communities of the project and, at the same time, acts as an important link/hub for developing art processes at local level. .
Community arts practitioners championed the right of different communities to determine their own culture in the interests of social justice: I really do believe in the community. .
Both in process and in artistic output, they tend to believe that, in order to have a positive social impact, the art produced must be of the highest possible quality. .
For the artists, if you want to give audiences an active role, first of all you must build up a trusting space, a space where people can feel free to express themselves. .
So there is the possibility either to write directly or to be mediated: this responds to the aim to give a special voice to people, who feel free to express their feelings and opinions related to the specific field of the performing arts. .
The artistic director was conscious that the festival had to find a way to give voice to the local community, empowering it with the right tools to read and understand the new languages of creation, expression and meanings related to the performing arts. .
But this small team of people allows a theatre or a festival to enlarge its connection with different audience communities, approaches and tastes. .
The gist and mind-set was that since there are spectators who want to be involved in some way with artists or members of our organisation, we try to set up pleasant and enjoyable conditions such as a theatre club/bar in which spectators can meet with them. .
To further enhance their horizons, members participated in the meetings, workshops and conferences held during the 22nd, 23rd and 24th edition of the Sibiu International Theatre Festivals, creating new contacts, and discovering new artists and companies. .
We engaged and collaborated with community members through conversation as well as the sharing of song, dance, play and story. .
When the participants are not yet audiences, and especially when the residencies are the occasion of a partnership with local structures or communities which were not represented among the audience, the residencies can make it possible to reach new audiences, by informing people about the existence of the place, creating expectations to see shows, establishing new subjective links with artists or artistic forms. .
Reachable audiences are also made up of individuals who are passionate about cultural products, who want to enter into dialogue with them, who want to own, remix, use them to create new social links and to negotiate their identity. .
The project also aims to characterise itself as a cultural platform and a place for relationships to grow as active young spectators. .
But, finally, I really like it, it helps me to express myself Through various tips and tasks, hints and exercises, we learned to get out of our comfort zone, to be self-dependent and to take our responsibility as performers For me, it was a demonstration that everybody can be an actor, a dancer, or a performer I discover the new potential of this performing art. .
Some conventional community theatre and dance projects work on a performance to form or strengthen a community. .
Participants also mention much learning from residencies: new tools of individual or collective expression (dance, theatre, poetry, improvisation games, performances, etc.), the discovery of new aesthetics, the familiarity with an artistic vocabulary, etc. .
And it really happens when actors/dancers have the personal attributes that make them effective including empathy, patience, persistence, vision, enthusiasm, responsiveness and flexibility. .
However, thanks to the multiple effects they can produce, participatory residencies represent an opportunity to transform the relations between audiences, organisations and artists, as to change the way these actors see their respective roles. .
By the term experimental we refer to those creative processes, that do not follow a fixed script, are ready for changes, and, what is most important, are able to involve new people during the process of creation. .
Human network(ing) participants themselves becoming more active in the live performing art (as audience coming more often to the theatres to see various works or even becoming performers) opening new possibilities in life for participants we worked with (one of the persons who worked with us says that Different? really made a difference in her life allowing her to look for new horizons and ways of living) the dance and art scene in Czech Republic discovering the benefits of coaching, facilitation of processes, communication and feedback skills. .
Some artists believe that it is a way to get closer to authenticity, social accuracy, innovative forms, challenging stage directions, or producing shows involving a new type of relationship with their social environment and their audiences. .
Some of these learnings contribute to the goals generally assigned to cultural democracy (objectives like access to culture, culture being considered here as a very small part represented by artistic institutions): some people got a new passion for contemporary dance, some others questioned their past prejudices about theatre, some would like to practice an artistic activity or discover a new venue and its programming. .
Dan Canham The added value of the project was the opportunity for young artists to test themselves in different places and in different environment, establishing connections and relationship in new European countries with various expectations and understandings of what a dance performance can be; different level of commitment and engagement to performing arts creation processes. .
They can concern theatre and dance experiences, memories, ideas and practices about the way people produce and participate in culture. .
Our participation work has a particular emphasis on children and young people, (preschool, within school and out of hours), so that theatre becomes a natural part of their culture and enriches their lives, but we also ensure that some points of engagement continue to be available as they grow and move through life. .
For Kilowatt, audience development activity concerns the way a performing art organization conceives and operates to actively engaging people; the ultimate goal of the organisation is to improve understanding, fulfilment and growth of all the actors involved in the artistic experience. .
Whether its a matter of social representation or a way to create better inclusion of marginalised groups into society, many politicians value culture as a key factor to provide change. .
Technology provides an opportunity to turn up the dial on audience engagement, enabling cultural organisations to engage more people and reach out to new audiences. .
Technology can also allow for a more meaningful or deeper relationship with audiences, including more interactivity, with users able and interested in curing their own experiences and generating their own content, or better sharing, mixing, giving life to different ideas, personalised and seen as the expression of the audiences way of thinking. .
The potential of digital communication and social tools widens the pervasiveness of possible contacts, but the involvement of the public requires a holistic cultural long-term strate-gy/approach. .
Technologies By technological change we mean the possibility of access to a considerable number of new tools that make participation easier, more direct, and more individual. .
Be SpectACTive! digital experimentation can be seen as an ideal and challenging arena to test how and in which way digital interaction can affect either creative processes and audience active participation and engagement. .
Using digital technology to engage audiences Digital experience is transforming the way audiences engage with culture and is driving new forms of cultural participation and practice. .
Certainly, digital technology is transforming the relationship that cultural organisations have with their public, opening new possibilities. .
Starting from this assumption we wanted to investigate the potential of digital technology to actively engage audiences through new formats and mediums and by diversifying their distribution channels. .
Be SpectACTive! represents an attempt to deepen the possibilities offered by the participation in the artistic decision and programming, management, creation in progress, by the direct engagement in the casting or by an interaction with the creators via a digital platform. .
Those projects enabled the organisation to expand even further the scope and attraction, as well as the impact within the local community. .
An organisation with a strong social purpose may be far more interested in empowering its local community through creativity. .
Both a form of activism and these days a developed professional discipline, it enables strong communities, encourages active citizens, promotes social justice and helps improve the quality of community life. .
I wanted to be part of this project because of the work with different community for developing the performance. .
This work gave me the opportunity to better understand a creative process. .
Its a really good opportunity to foster the sense of belonging to the project, to work with different people, to test new tools and keep in touch with different ways of engaging communities, to enhance the relationship among our networks staff members. .
That approach is perceived as a form of respect for the creative process, in line with artists needs and willingness of getting in the game and experiment; nevertheless, that approach has resulted in a manifold constellation of web contents. .
A process-oriented approach emphasises that creative activity itself is a developmental process that creates self-discovery and meaning. .
Audience member This relationship became more effective when artists adopted a proactive approach, enthusiastically inviting people to get involved. .
When a cultural product proposed to a certain audience has a real meaning, it is economically and culturally valuable and its benefit is perceived not only by the individuals but also by the local, national and European community. .
The mantra was growth and jobs, and rightly so, as it was crucial to react to the economic slump. .
Therefore, the Be SpectACTive! website has proven itself to be a good valorisation tool in terms of dissemination and exploitation of the project, and for maximising the impact of the project results by increasing its value, strengthening its impact, enabling its transfer and spreading it into different contexts. .
To understand this turning point, one has to point out first the variety of participatory approaches existing in the cultural field. .
To open a dialogue between different aesthetics and cultural beliefs? .
Then, we focused more on the efforts and energies put for enhancing the participatory approach and creating meaningful bonds with the respective audiences/communities. .
Thus, it is easier to find participatory initiatives in those societies most open to innovation and to bottom-up initiatives. .
Our involvement in this four-year programme inspired us to develop this strand of work and to enable a wider cross-section of our community to get involved. .
This means that we welcome everyone who is enthusiastic to participate at different levels. .
An entrepreneurial organisation addressing an urban elite may be focused on developing paying audiences with a commitment to nurturing the place of live/visual arts in contemporary narratives. .
Culture as entertainment putting a city/region on the map! .
The success and buzz generated by the project can be explained, on one side, by the innovative approach to audience development, which consists of adopting an action research methodology and involving venues and festivals with different approaches to audience participation. .
Culture as a glocal fixpoint recently we see how political strategies embrace culture as a way to highlight the local cultural virtues and opportunities and at the same time reflect the ongoing global tendencies, movements and formats. .
More specifically, activating local groups of spectators was the key to secure their loyalty towards the activities of the theatres and festivals involved in Be SpectACTive!.
Someone is more likely to be on the stage and dance, someone wants to help the company by showing them the city and introducing them to local citizens, someone is interested in cultural management and wants to join the process of performance selection, and someone just wants to meet the artists and see their show. .
Performing arts Traditionally recognised as forms of creative activity performed in front of an audience, such as drama, music, and dance (Performing Arts, n.d.). .
Can we afford developing projects on such basis, all in all closely resembling the classical activity of production in performing arts funding artists to create new shows, inspired by the society surrounding them? .
For most of these volunteers, their experience in the programme is an introduction into the world of culture and performing arts; as such, they have the opportunity to be exposed to the latest international performances as well as to broaden their horizon by having the unique experience of helping to organise these events. .
I appreciate the range of performances, which were chosen for the programme, the variety of genres and venues was a great benefit of the programme. .
The key to a successful residency was very clearly demonstrated to lie in the selection of the artist or company who genuinely have community engagement at the heart of its creative process combined with a commissioning theatre that shared those values. .
While some of these forms attempt to include non-professionals in the production of a show or a piece, considering participation as the very foundation of an artistic practice, some other would use participation as a simple tool to make better shows thanks to new inspirations and relations. .
But when there are new partners from different fields (theatre, multimedia, music, etc.) there will be more of lets call it useful diversity. .
Altogether, these factors marked the path for a renewed relevance of audience development in nowadays performing arts and European cultural policy. .
Artist Most often, the term describes those who create within a context of the high culture, activities such as drawing, painting, sculpture, acting, dancing, writing, filmmaking, new media, photography, and music people who use imagination, talent, or skill to create works that may be judged to have an aesthetic value. .
This term is used to highlight the dimensions of involvement in the arts. .
For all these reasons, it is important to bear in mind what motivated an organization to start up a participatory project, and what its implications are for it (social and artistic recognition, acquisition of supplementary funding, etc.). .
Professional artists feel that it is particularly important for them to be able concentrate on a clearly defined theme over a longer period of time and with sufficient financial support to be able to work on it in terms of both depth and breadth. .
The artistic concept and quality is also a very important factor. .
Organisations have a responsibility to the communities that they engage with to maintain a connection and keep them involved in an ongoing journey of artistic output. .
Collaborating across Europe The project enables and supports artistic residencies from Europe to the UK and vice versa, which is critical for the development of artists, their work and cultural understanding. .
They have also provided us with more opportunities to partner with others and form a diverse network of collaborators, giving special attention to cross-sector cooperation, in order to connect artistic projects with public and private organisations working in commercial, human rights, scientific and social sciences sectors and fields. .
Cross-disciplinarity and active participation are the main characteristics on which this project is based, thanks to the interaction among young cultural operators, artists and active citizenship of the neighbourhood. .
In order to get audiences to see this new work they developed a programme of lead-in events that would engage with new audiences in different ways so that they could talk about the festival, deliver marketing and build relationships with the community in a more diverse way before the festival week itself. .
It was also an opportunity to have meaningful consultations with the local community, who eventually acted as advocates and ambassadors by promoting the programme of the festival in first person. .
Nevertheless, working and researching for a reasonably long time period, connecting and sharing experiences in a network, learning from previous experience and maintaining the focus on the participatory mission could help cultural practitioners to accomplish great results. .
During four years, the network implemented various actions willing to develop audiences and citizen participation in artistic choices and creation processes, including participatory programming groups, participative residencies, and digital participation. .
We also focused on adding more after-performance debates with artists, as well as opportunities to discuss works in progress. .
At other times, they become involved in a community giving presentations, workshops, or collaborating with local artists, audience of the hosting place, groups of citizens. .
Furthermore, hosting creative work-in-progress projects will certainly help us in audience engagement, as long as our active spectators will be invited to join the residencies in different forms. .
The input by the participants/audience that are part of the development and artistic process should be made more visible and acknowledged appropriately by organisations and artists. .
It is a responsibility of the network and the artists that we work with, to keep developing new models of participation and creating active spectators adding one more layer of innovative thinking about participatory working methods. .
A successful interaction between artists and audience The keys for a successful interaction between artists and audience during creative residencies are two: on the one hand, it is necessary an artist who is really convinced that meeting with people outside his/her working group can bring a nourishment to his/her creative process; on the other hand, it is necessary that the organisation taking care of the relationship between artists and audience, knows how to stimulate the audience to be actively involved in creative processes while in progress. .
The workshop is/will be open to professionals from the field of performing arts. .
The notion of participatory audience practices concerns different levels of involvement, and artistic experimentation with digital technologies leads to a new understanding of the active role of audiences and eventually their impact on artists creative process. .
The different social platforms became entry doors to the project for different kinds of audiences interested in different topics or artists, or simply fascinated by some videos or images. .
The auspice for the future is to extend the range of the initiative, involving even more spectators, professionals, artists, citizens in different European countries, with the aim to continue connecting people in the name of performing arts. .
We find the following modalities, with varying frequency levels at our operators: Public training sessions; The participation upstream in the creation of shows (interaction with the artist, documentation); The participation of spectators as performers in participatory performances or collective creation; The participation of volunteers in welcoming artists; The participation of volunteers in production tasks; The participation of volunteers in communication tasks (social networks, web, media relations, translations, etc.). .
Therefore, by engaging with this project, we had the chance to further the debate around these topics, and introducing Italian cultural operators to this open and meaningful discussion on the role of active participation as an approach which is undertaken specifically to meet the needs of existing and potential audiences, visitors and participants and to help arts organisations to develop ongoing relationships with them. .
Sometimes residents become quite involved in a community giving presentations, workshops, or collaborating with local artists or the general public. .
The aim is to receive feedback from audience members and encourage them to join the discussion with the artist during the creation process including early stages, ideas, inspiration material, etc. .
Audience development can be understood in various ways, depending on its objectives and target groups (Bollo et al., 2017): increasing audiences (attracting audiences with the same sociodemographic profile as the current audience); deepening relationship with the audiences (enhancing the experience of the current audiences in relation to a cultural event and/or encouraging them to discover related or even non-related, more complex art forms, thus fostering loyalty and return visits); diversifying audiences (attracting people with a different sociodemographic profile than the current audiences, including people with no previous contact with the arts). .
The aim is to extend the participation to the spectators command of art work. .
In the frame of Be SpectACTive!, it refers to the process of generating digital content before, during and after an artistic residency which is primarily produced for the Be SpectACTive! online platform in order to encourage a high degree of interactive experience (see above) with audience members. .
That is to say, on the aim of the time spent in the location, as precisely defined by and oriented to an exchange between participants and artists. .
Spectators can nurture any artistic process, if they face the artist with respect and desire to listen to his/her vision. .
There are many interpretations today on what quality means in the performing arts field. .
Mainly thanks to a Facebook campaign, we could reach more people interested in contemporary dance and culture in general. .
Throughout the Be SpectACTive! four-year project, theatres and festivals have been relating communities, citizens and artists across countries, becoming hubs where people and ideas have been meeting. .
First of all, thanks to the creative residencies involving local citizens, we received a significant input to organise other types of meetings and active programmes, such as open rehearsals with well-known Hungarian choreographers and international companies, dance workshops, and activities based on theatrical games. .
We are aiming to find new ways of connecting artists to audiences, by means of creating opportunities for them to be in communication for an extended period of time compared to the usual short audience artists interaction during a performance presented as a finished work. .
Some theatres and auditoriums, and to a lesser extent also festivals, also offer the opportunity to attend open rehearsals, or presentation of works in progress, like at the end of a creative residency, extracts, etc. .
Active viewers (followers) can see the shows and take part in the meetings with the artists after every show. .
Displace Yourself Theatre This is a very challenging opportunity for young choreographers and dancers to test themselves in a comfortable arena, without any coercive commitment: a free space to experiment, find new ways to develop their creativity and explore new patterns. .
Or, on the contrary, was participation more an opportunity for the cultural policy to generating awareness among citizens and at cultural level? .
In broad terms, this longitudinal practice is a response to the changing world around us, where digital technologies have enabled us all to take a more active, participative role in shaping society and contemporary culture. .
Online co-productions were conceived as an opportunity for audiences to actively participate to the artistic process in a different manner, both through the physical and digital interaction with the artists themselves. .
They aspire to fully represent their communities, to tell untold stories and to give a platform to people and issues often ignored or insufficiently recognised. .
This increasing ability and will to express things by new means, increasing social connections, and increasing confidence in themselves are all elements that could contribute to an empowerment. .
Some of the active participants in Be SpectACTive! are playing the role of bridge between our venue and larger public. .
In Be SpectACTive!, hosting venues, their relationships with their audiences, neighbourhood and local partners also influenced the shape of the residencies and the social composition of participants. .
It was the case of the European Spectators Day (ESD), a good format to foster the encounter between communities spread in different European cities through the use of online tools. .
The general gist was to create conditions where participants could thrive and interact, instead of walking them through every step of the way; hence, the resulting experience was more familiar and solid. .
The local community plays a significant role in determining the artistic programme. .
In this context, attracting new audiences and involving the local community has become essential in order to apply to public funds. .
Therefore, we could say, the approach with all these people in this kind of relation really helped us to improve our communication with audience and therefore our mission as an organisation. .
Being ready to share decision-making, to collaborate, giving some things up, being flexible and adaptable, meeting people where they are, are fundamental principles to engaging audiences actively. .
Decisions that are thought to be flexible, to reflect migration effects and the shifting populations and cultures, to be anchored in the values and ethics in power, to strengthen equality aspects between individuals and groups in society, to work for constructive and sustainable relations between different partakers in society. .
They are aware of, and respond to, opportunities to work with other community partners, including those from other sectors, to meet local needs. .
But in some as in others, it is necessary to empower or incorporate staff with mediating capacity, able to understand the expectations, motivations and needs of all stakeholders of the process, from the artist to the usual audience, including those citizens willing to participate in the participatory game. .
Engaging in participatory activities means working in close relationship with communities and questioning ideas such as that of citizenship, inclusion, belonging, empowerment, etc. .
Our aim was to create platforms for meeting and sharing in a friendly, cosy atmosphere. .
You might say that working within different contexts, trying unusual ways of working with audience, different ways of making decisions and ways of thinking in general is positive as is. .
This allows for ongoing iteration and adaptation, a process that is innately creative and involving of a wide range of people. .
Regardless the context artists were coming from, their ethics and aesthetics, the project was a comfortable arena to experiment, to find new ways to develop their creativity and explore new patterns. .
We made them a part of something and they felt that the work produced a rewarding result. .
By taking on board the responsibility given to them, however challenging it may have been at first, participants have felt eventually rewarded, experiencing a higher level of confidence and independence. .
Through residencies, participants can also get a better understanding of the creation process and of the hidden work of artists from the inside: this can change their point of view as spectators, but also as art makers. .
Experiences like this can have effects on all the aspect of your life, because art is transformative and can transform you. .
This process has changed also the perception of the performing arts as a whole creative sector. .
Those residencies effectively deeply involved the participatory group in the artistic creation process and, beside that, their participatory strategy was clever and attractive. .
We were worried, that the relationship with audience became distant and passive. .

ARTICLE - CANDIDATE TRANSITION VARIABLES

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