Outside the box: open-air performance as a pandemic response

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COVID-19 has introduced enduring challenges to arts and culture organisations, demanding innovation in response to public health guidelines. Yet there has been little discussion of the range of practices and sites being used for performance beyond theatre buildings, and the practicability of socially-distanced, live, in-person assembly for outdoor arts, especially in public spaces. This inter-disciplinary project between drama and management studies comprises two strands. The project will work with civic partners to identify how public spaces may be used for performance, harnessing the revivified community engagement with green spaces beyond the home, brought about by the lockdown and aligned with the national aspiration for transformation, to Build Back Better from the pandemic. While open-air performance has been a first stage in cultural re-opening, merely replicating indoor models outside does not resolve key safety and management issues. Hence, the first strand aims to document the nature and extent of innovative outdoor practices across the UK, and understand the management challenges from the perspective of two sets of principal stakeholders: artists and local government. Drawing on models of site-specific, dispersed, threshold, and ecological performances, alongside practice-as-research with artists who have long-term experience and expertise in these genres, the second strand entails a season of commissioned practice-as-research work in 2021. The festival of work will make these innovative models more visible and contribute to the revival of live performance cultures UK-wide, providing exemplars of sustainable cultural practices and assisting local government to facilitate culture for quality of life in a physically-distanced world.