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

COVID-19给艺术和文化组织带来了持久的挑战，要求创新以应对公共卫生指南。然而，很少有人讨论剧院建筑之外的表演实践和场地的范围，以及社交距离，现场，现场组装户外艺术的实用性，特别是在公共场所。这个戏剧和管理研究之间的跨学科项目包括两个方面。该项目将与民间合作伙伴合作，确定如何利用公共空间进行表演，利用社区参与家庭以外的绿色空间，这是由于封锁带来的，符合国家对转型的期望，以从疫情中重建更好。虽然露天表演是文化重新开放的第一阶段，但仅仅在室外复制室内模式并不能解决关键的安全和管理问题。因此，第一部分旨在记录英国各地创新户外实践的性质和程度，并从两组主要利益相关者的角度理解管理挑战：艺术家和地方政府。第二部分借鉴了特定场地、分散、门槛和生态表演的模式，以及与在这些流派中拥有长期经验和专业知识的艺术家一起进行的实践研究，需要在2021年进行一个季节的委托实践研究工作。工作节将使这些创新模式更加引人注目，并有助于在英国范围内复兴现场表演文化，提供可持续文化实践的典范，并协助当地政府在物理距离的世界中促进文化生活质量。

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.