A Model of Performance

Abstract

Role-play is a subset of performance, and it follows the same conventions that bring all performances alive and compel the attention of their audiences. Organizers of any performance employ the same range of devices to minimize detachment and transport the audience into their virtual world. The management of expectations by means of aesthetic distance, the framing devices of space and time, conventions for players and audience, the focus of a stage for action, conventions of preparation and performance on it, and the final resolution of tension ensure the necessary, riveting experience of intense subjectivity radiating out from the central stage, or field. The same techniques are at play whether the performance is a sporting match, a wedding, an aesthetic performance, or a role-play workshop.

In the previous chapter we introduced the inner dynamics of the virtual world that make living role-play possible and that generate its energy and capacity to foster fresh insight. On a practical level, we need ways to encourage participants to become engaged so that discovery and learning can begin. The problem is more likely to be one of over-distance than for people to be too involved, and so organizers of all performances do everything they can to minimize detachment. Here we explore how we use framing, focus, and aesthetic distance to minimize distraction and encourage focused attention so that audiences are caught up in the virtual worlds on a stage or playing field. These same techniques are at work in role-play.