Theater outside itself: considerations on the importance of the spectator in contemporary art politics

Abstract

This article discusses the forms of perception that are at stake in contemporary theater and places the relationship between art and politics at the center of the discussion. The main issue is that in contemporary artistic practices the spectator cannot be understood as a passive receiver, but effectively as a co-creator who devises new paths and proposes meanings based on their own experience. Based on contemporary theater and the relationships it proposes between staging and spectators, this article considers that the politics of contemporary art lies less in thematizations and the affirmation of an artistic commitment than in the proposition of a sensitive experience, in which the spectator occupies a central position.