Vipavinee Artpradid

12 February 2019

A core element in VisAbility’s 4-day programme is the public announcement performance on the first day. Former participants and the VisAbility team perform a dance in a public space to get people curious about the programme. Afterwards, they give out flyers about the programme, inviting community members to come and check it out the following day. What I love most about public outdoor performances is the unplanned ‘choreography’ that goes on with the audience. The spontaneity of coming together through dance is beautiful to experience and be a part of.

At about 1 pm we all got in a van to travel to Kokkadicholai village where we then spent some time observing VisAbility’s rehearsals for the performance later that day. Watching rehearsals provides a different kind of insight into the performers. It is another aspect of ‘audience research’ that can definitely be studied more!

At around 4 pm we traveled to the main road and the researchers did some additional baseline surveys in pairs to get a sense of conducting baseline surveys. Two of the researchers had already conducted a baseline survey the previous 2 days.

The first performance took place with a crowd of people, livestock, and vehicles forming around the performers and extending into the middle of the road. Afterwards, the researchers spread out and talked to audience members using the methods we had discussed. As the audience got a sense of what our research team was doing, some people showed non-verbal language that clearly invited us to come and talk to them, some preferred to walk away, some came closer to listen to our interviews with their family member or friend, while others decided they would rather observe from a distance. Well done to our researchers for expertly maneuvering the cultural and social minefield!

A second public announcement performance took place up the same road and this time an even larger crowd formed. There were plenty of audience members for the research assistants to approach! It was particularly encouraging that many people were interested in participating in a focus group. What struck me about the community was how friendly and approachable everyone we talked to was. They openly shared their experiences and really appreciated what we were doing. Field research can sometimes be extremely challenging in terms of responsiveness, but the community made this experience very enjoyable and heart-warming.