Build Your Own Cult: An Immersive Audience Handling Risk Workshop | brokeGIRLrich
So when I began my PhD journey, it was very important to me that, along with whatever academic outputs I managed, I wanted to create something that had the potential to impact the industry.
It’s one thing to write a PhD thesis that like 10 people total might ever read about how care ethics and care aesthetics should influence the way risk management for participatory audiences is considered (riveting sentence, right?).
And another to take the tools I’ve been learning through the interviews with production staff and performance makers and apply them.
So I wanted to make a workshop. Partially because time is one of the biggest elements for managing risk and time is the thing it’s always hard to find during rehearsals and performances.
And talking through emergency plans was another common theme (and the lack of time to do so) in my interviews.
Then I ran some bits and bobs of my workshop at a PhD event on campus (not at all with industry folks) and I was really interested in how everyone spoke about risks and what would bother them and what wouldn’t as we built silly little hypothetical initiation ceremonies to a cult.
I realized that starting the workshops before completely finishing the research could be an interesting addition to the research and so here we are.
September 30, 2024, I will be presenting my second workshop – first time trying it online – at 1-5 PM GMT.
If you work as a stage manager or a house manager or someone responsible for managing immersive/participatory audiences – or someone interested in managing immersive/participatory audiences – all are welcome.
And, since you are still part of my PhD research, it’s free!
Besides building a cult and discussing how we might risk assess, but also care for, our initiates, we’ll talk about some key concepts such as informed consent, the power of introjects, the relevance of aftercare and cool-down spaces, and finish up the workshop with a look at how you feel about risk and how that likely influences how you do risk assessments.
