Thesis
Site-specific promenade performances, their affordances, and engendering of shared reality. A case study
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2025
- Thesis identifier
- T17303
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201457555
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- For almost forty years, the Dukes Theatre Company in Lancaster, England, has sited its annual site-specific promenade performances in the city’s Williamson Park, an achievement unsurpassed by any other U.K. theatre company. During those decades, audiences have consistently returned, and some individuals have attended from the inaugural year of these performances in 1987. The park location has contributed to the reasons behind the loyalty shown by audiences, and this community amenity and the behaviours associated with a park environment are particularly relevant to this thesis. Scholarship in site-specific performances has addressed the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary practices site-specific companies employ, and research has contributed to understanding how audiences engage with such work. This study adds to that body of knowledge by investigating what opportunities for engendering a shared reality are afforded by the performance practices of site-specific promenade performances. Creating a shared reality helps people connect with others and establishes and strengthens social relationships (Echterhoff et al., 2009). It requires communicators to be motivated to create an interpersonal connection with others, and essentially, those involved in the interaction would experience shared attention (Shteynberg, 2015). In shared attention, people are aware that others have been co-present, witnessing and gaining knowledge of the event, object or something which has focused their attention. This thesis provides evidence from my case study of The Dukes’ adaptation of The Hobbit (2016) that the ambulatory nature of a multi-location performance heightens the audience experience and encourages social interaction where people are motivated to make connections with others through communicating their impressions of what they have just witnessed, conditions necessary for shared reality to occur. Williamson Park's environment contributes to those conditions with its unique geographical features, vistas, and the connotations a park evokes of leisure experience.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Goldie, David
- Fabb, Nigel
- Taylor, Yvette
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Embargo Note
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File | 2025-05-27 | Private |