Review by Choice Review
A collection of essays based in recent empirical experiments, this volume aims to shift the goals of audience research away from the marketing of cultural products and toward the investigation of aesthetic experience. Included are essays on the challenge of participatory theater to cultural authority, the importance of arts venues in shaping spectator experience, reciprocal relationships between playing and listening to music, "liveness" effects in the digital streaming of opera to audiences sitting in cinemas, and enhancement of the post-performance experience of young theater audiences. Several essays critique conventional methodologies for assessing audience response, such as interviews and questionnaires, and advance new methods, including guided metaphorical associations and the creation of visualizations after performances, plus videotaping whole-body responses during the event. The question of whether spectators make meanings from their engagement in artistic experiences during or after performances recurs in several essays. It is answered mostly conclusively in an essay that reports the findings of real-time spectator response at a dance concert. Using portable PalmPilot devices, audience members recorded their levels of engagement, which were found to track closely with the choreographic phrasing of the dance. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty, and professionals/practitioners. B. A. McConachie University of Pittsburgh
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
