Participant experience in art-sport: Additive? Interactive? Transformative?

Abstract

imove, which became Yorkshire and Humberside’s regional programme for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, was inspired by ‘the art of movement’, and underpinned by the idea of transcending dualities of mind/body and art/sport. Art and sport were combined in various ways within the programme, and with different degrees and types of audience engagement and participation. This article draws on the evaluation data collected during the course of the programme to develop a typology of art-sport relationships: additive, interactive, and transformative. It defines and illustrates each instance with examples of particular projects and highlights the role of the participants/audience in determining the nature of the physical learning and new knowledge of the moving body that arises in each case. Finally, it considers the conditions under which hybrid forms of art-sport can innovate and flourish with reference to the concept of ‘third space’.

Acknowledgements

The art-sport typology presented in this article has drawn on the data collected for the evaluation report of the imove programme completed by the Psychosocial Research Unit at the University of Central Lancashire. Thanks are due to Alastair Roy, Julian Manley and Suzanne Hacking for their role in that work, and to Lizzie Muller and Jill Bennett at the University of New South Wales for discussions on audience engagement and third space in trans-disciplinary fields.

Notes

1. The original report can be found at http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/19648/1/imoveFINAL_WORD_300713_071013.pdf

2. imove Arts website https://www.imovearts.co.uk

3. https://culturalolympiad.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/the-legacy-trust-their-regional-programmes/ (accessed 22–08-17).

4. Some of these can be viewed on vimeo at https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/blink-eye#&gid=1&pid=1 (accessed 20-08-17).

5. http://SeaSwim.co.uk/exhibitions/.

6. Damian Murphy podcast: Sea Swim Podcast, Sound Cloud (accessed 22–08-17) http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~dtm3/practice.html

7. http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~dtm3/practice.html

8. Ballet Boys at Sea Swim You Tube. Published 10–07-2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_bZI7imPmM (accessed 22–08-17).

9. Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

10. Fields of Vision: a Manifesto for the Arts and Sport Together https://artsinsport.wordpress.com/a-manifesto-for-the-arts-and-sport-together/ (accessed 23–08-17).