Theatre in museums: ‘touch it without a touch’

Abstract

Perhaps: “In museums, the touching of objects is not a traditional form of interaction”. Similarly, audience cannot touch performers but they communicate through invisible rays of linking by what Constantin Stanislavski called ‘irradiation’. In this sense, touch is not only about being physically connected but more about building up inner communication with empathy. Inspired by this, we innovatively used theatre as a method to explore museums. One method is to ask participants to create a tableau of what they have seen in paintings, and then make a story based on it and perform it. Through this experience, participants can not touch the Theatre training for teachers at JiaDing Musuem, Shanghai, 18/06/2021. Photo Credit: Stella Wang.