SUMMARY FOR ARTICLE

Spectatorship, politics and the rules of participation: Re-discovering the audience in contemporary Lithuanian theatre. Although the tactics varied from the physical engagement of the spectator to consciousness-raising through the distance of critical thinking ; from constructing situations for new social realities to bringing down the distinction between performer and audience production and reception professional and amateur all the practices of the historical avant-garde were focused on the emancipation or activa- tion of the spectator. Looking at the artistic practices of the modern avant-garde in the context of contemporary partici- patory culture Claire Bishop concludes that even if today this equation of partici- pation and social change is no less persistent its terms are perhaps less convinc- ing: the idea of collective presence has been scrutinized and dissected by numerous philosophers; participation is used by business as a tool for improving efficiency and workplace morale as well as being all-pervasive in the mass-media in the form of reality television. Spectatorship Politics and the Rules of Participation To summarize one can observe the increasing willingness of Lithuanian the- atre creators to overturn the traditional relationship between performance and audience; however these shifts can be best described as modest forms of re- engaging spectators without a willingness to involve them in processes of coproduction or co-creation that would challenge the autonomy of the theatre artist. How User Participation Trans- forms Cultural Production.