14. The Art of Unsolicited Participation

How do audiences respond to participatory art in unscripted ways? This chapter questions the status of participatory art in the developmental context as forging cohesion amongst participants and focuses on its sometimes conflictual potentials. Reflecting on a case study of the Theatre of the Oppressed in the context of a Congress-party-led initiative for women’s mobilization in India, the essay analyses participation by linking the macro-dimension of development with the micro-dimension of community theatre practice. Of particular interest is how participation occurs by way of a nuanced range of reactions, with functions ranging from the disruptive to the meliorative. The essay calls for methodological attention to ancillary activities that take place at the margins of the theatre event. These seemingly para-theatrical phenomena indicate that community participation often assumes unsolicited forms.