Audience Engagement and the Role of Arts Talk in the Digital Era

Attendees will be inspired to create opportunities for meaningful engagement with their audiences.

06 September 2019

On September 16, the Department of Drama will host guest lecturer Lynne Conner, an international specialist in audience engagement and enrichment philosophy and strategy. She will share new ideas on how to excite and engage (connect with) members of our community who attend live performance events and gallery exhibits.

Lynne Conner's talk is based on research findings from her highly influential book, Audience Engagement and the Role of Arts Talk in the Digital Era (Palgrave, 2013). Aimed at scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines-Drama, Dance, Music, Art, Spoken Word and various emerging forms of cultural expression-attendees will be inspired to create opportunities for meaningful engagement with their audiences.

Lynne Conner states, "In my research I place the individual experience of audience members at the center of the arts experience (rather than positioning the arts event/object, or the artist, as the center). I make the claim that what the audience really wants is the opportunity to co-author the arts experience. They don't want to be told what the art work means. They want the opportunity to participate-in an intelligent and responsible way-in telling its meaning. They want to have a real forum (or several forums) for the interplay of ideas, experience, data, and feeling that makes up the arts experience."

Don't miss this inspiring guest speaker -- reserve your seat today!

Audience Engagement and the Role of Arts Talk in the Digital Era
September 16 at 7 p.m.
45-minute talk followed by a 20-minute Q&A, dessert reception
Timms Centre for the Arts
Admission is free. Reserve your seat online.

About Lynne Conner

Dr. Lynne Conner is an internationally regarded cultural policy theorist in the area of audience research. Her most recent book, Audience Engagement and the Role of Arts Talk in the Digital Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), is frequently cited as a critical text in the development of the field of audience research. Dr. Conner is currently serving as one of four editors for the 500-page Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts, a prestige reference work providing an overview of the field of Audience Research that both surveys the discipline and includes emerging/cutting edge areas (publication date 2021). In addition, she was recently appointed to the international Advisory Board for the forthcoming Routledge Theatre & Performance Series in Audience Research. Her column "We the Audience" appears as a featured blog at ArtsJournal.com.