On Being a Walking Body: Dramaturgies of Participatory Pandemic Theatre

Abstract

Abstract:Mariah Horner and Jacob Pittini are members of Dr. Jenn Stephenson’s research team investigating participatory dramaturgies in Canada. In May 2020, Pittini and Horner attended Zuppa Theatre Co’s Vista20, an ambulatory app-guided play about the COVID-19 pandemic. Through dramaturgical analysis, Pittini and Horner explore Vista20’s use of walking to situate participants in their embodied experiences of the ongoing pandemic, with a focus on liveness, duality, and digital participation across distances. The app-based experience encourages participants to explore their own contexts through walking while connecting them to storytellers in Halifax, revealing complex dramaturgies of together/apart. Pittini and Horner analyze how Vista20 uses technology to achieve a unique embodied yet socially distanced form of participation in response to the pandemic, representing an exciting form of theatrical liveness.