Participating in the Age of Pandemic

On 13 March 2020, researchers Mariah Horner and Jenn Stephenson were worried that their investigation into participatory theatre would come to a halt. Since 2019, Horner and Stephenson have attended and collected over seventy-five participatory theatre performances by Canadian creators, analyzing the dramaturgical structures at play that invite audiences into the co-creative space with artists. Marking a trend, Stephenson and Horner paired this catalogue of participatory dramaturgies with effects of the larger cultural zeitgeist that provides participants with the language and practice in meaningful and participatory play. When COVID-19 hit, social distancing and pandemic-response plans required a different kind of global participation. Although physically disconnecting us from others, public health agencies asked their citizens to collectively participate in new practices that would redefine our relationship to space and each other. When this article was submitted in mid-July, millions of people around the world were participating in something for the common good. Although participatory artists are finding themselves unable to cross the same physical barriers to co-creating work as they could before the COVID-19 pandemic, Horner looks at the ways participatory creators employ their practices in this new reality of social distancing. In "Participating in the Age of Pandemic," Horner investigates how participation is possible at six feet apart, looking to participatory artists in Canada who are defying the loneliness of isolation by inviting intimacy and love into their socially distanced performances.