SUMMARY FOR ARTICLE

This article decolonises hitherto Anglophonic theorising of the audience phenomenon of immersion by disassociating it from the participatory and interactive nature of immersive theatre practices, and locating it instead in the reception of contemporary British dance. It argues that by looking torasa,the art reception theory as laid out in the Natyashastra , immersion can also be theorised and experienced as an embodied and psycho-physical state that transpires between any audience, any artist and any piece of art that is premised on gestural codes of communication, regardless interactive participation. Through comparative analyses I argue that in these pieces audiences can experience immersion but it is not through physical interactivity as championed by immersive theatre practices and theories. By comparing case studies that speak of border- identity politics to multinational audiences the article focuses on the transnational nature of spectatorship in a racially culturally and nationally diverse location such as London. Therefore when an audience member experiences immersion in a conventional theatre she does so by looking at a piece of art from a critical position of embodied knowledge.