Rethinking the physical relationships between performers, audience, and space
How can the sensation of intimacy be preserved without actual proximity? Justin Davidson asked some artists and presenters about their plans for a socially distanced future.
Just off Columbus Avenue, a self-appointed DJ pulled up to an extra-wide sidewalk and greeted the weekend by blasting salsa from his car stereo. A small crowd gathered to dance at a distance, bringing some safety-rated joy to the neighborhood. It wasn’t a packed club or a raucous street party, like the kind that birthed salsa decades ago, but it felt like a sign, an early crocus announcing the rebirth of live entertainment.
The “foreseeable future” is a contradiction in terms, and among the infinity of things nobody knows is when we’ll be able to attend a live performance. It’s likely to be a long time before several thousand people will pack an auditorium or weave through a lobby at intermission, before actors can grapple onstage again, a makeup artist dabs foundation on cast members’ noses, or an opera singer stands in the path of a colleague’s barrage of vibrating air. The immense and costly apparatus of culture — theaters, opera houses, and orchestra halls — have become a liability, ill-suited to the COVID-19 age. Instead, productions will have to find less finely tailored venues, like outdoor public spaces and hangarlike halls. Even stars, waiting out the pandemic by the phone and expecting a call from an august institution immediately when things reopen, could be bench-sitting for a season or two... Keep reading on Vulture
Just off Columbus Avenue, a self-appointed DJ pulled up to an extra-wide sidewalk and greeted the weekend by blasting salsa from his car stereo. A small crowd gathered to dance at a distance, bringing some safety-rated joy to the neighborhood. It wasn’t a packed club or a raucous street party, like the kind that birthed salsa decades ago, but it felt like a sign, an early crocus announcing the rebirth of live entertainment.
The “foreseeable future” is a contradiction in terms, and among the infinity of things nobody knows is when we’ll be able to attend a live performance. It’s likely to be a long time before several thousand people will pack an auditorium or weave through a lobby at intermission, before actors can grapple onstage again, a makeup artist dabs foundation on cast members’ noses, or an opera singer stands in the path of a colleague’s barrage of vibrating air. The immense and costly apparatus of culture — theaters, opera houses, and orchestra halls — have become a liability, ill-suited to the COVID-19 age. Instead, productions will have to find less finely tailored venues, like outdoor public spaces and hangarlike halls. Even stars, waiting out the pandemic by the phone and expecting a call from an august institution immediately when things reopen, could be bench-sitting for a season or two... Keep reading on Vulture