2024/06/19 by Hunter, E.B., Magelssen, Scott · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Posthumanist Ethics and Activism #Sound Studies and Aurality #Theatre and Performance Studies
paper · doi:10.3998/mpub.12781862
openalex publication_date 2024/06/19 · openalex created_date 2024/06/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
<I>Enveloping Worlds</I> is a collection of essays that analyzes the phenomenon of immersive, participatory performance as it has developed in the US. As this collection demonstrates, immersive performance offers three-dimensional multisensory experiences, inviting audience members to be participants in the unfolding of the story, and challenging pre-existing ideas about the function of performance and entertainment. <I>Enveloping Worlds</I> questions audience agency and choice, the space and boundaries of performance, modes of immersion, empathy and engagement, and ethical considerations through fifteen essays. <BR /><BR /> Case studies in the volume include the Choctaw Cultural Center in Oklahoma and Choctaw sovereignty; a Black artist's autoethnographic performance challenging White audiences' entitlement to full inclusion; Immersive Van Gogh experiences and their scenographers; telephone performance during the COVID-19 lockdowns; Diane Paulus's<I> The Donkey Show</I>; the <I>Battle of Atlanta</I> panorama; an antebellum-themed department store display from the 1920s; escape rooms; Disney Parks; remotely staged plays about aging and dementia; tiki bars; anachronistic costuming at Renaissance Festivals; the technologies that shape the boundaries of immersive worlds; and tabletop role-playing games. Taken together, these essays contribute a rich discussion of immersive performance across radically different contexts, offering analytical models and terminology with which to clarify and advance this emergent discourse.