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ArtsProfessional issue 6 and its section on ?Participation? led me to mull over the implications of this word.
The articles appear to adopt the very common assumption in the professional arts world that participation is somehow to do with the professional artist working with people who are participants in the arts process as ?attenders?. But surely participation has a much wider meaning than that. What about the thousands, if not millions of people who are ?participants?, in its balder meaning of ?taking part?, in amateur music-making, theatre and other art forms? Indeed, in the amateur theatre sector, for which our organisation is the major representative body, we have increasingly begun to use the term ?participatory theatre? to describe our work, to distance ourselves from those who use the word ?amateur? in a sterile and pejorative sense.