Togetherness is an underlying principle of community arts, which values being with other people as we make theatre, music and art together. The lockdowns and social distancing required by Covid-19 … Continue reading
Welcome
This site contains an portfolio of current and archived projects, which you can browse either below or via the menu to the left.
You can also find a complete list of publications.
Current Projects
Edited by Matthew Reason, Lynne Conner, Katya Johanson and Ben Walmsley. Forthcoming 2021. Without an audience there is arguably no performance. Yet for a long time the serious and systematic … Continue reading
Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts
Projects Archive
A portfolio of research and practice in the areas of audiences, narrative, theatre and dance.
After watching a dance performance with friends we often leave the theatre and find ourselves asking each other, ‘What did you think?’ Or perhaps, alternatively, ‘Did you enjoy it?’ That … Continue reading Over the past decade the work of disabled performers in theatre and dance has received an increasingly high profile, wider audiences and presentation in established venues and festivals. At the … Continue reading Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact in Theatre, Music and Art engages with a diversity of contexts, locations and arts forms – including theatre, music and fine art – and brings … Continue reading Intellect, 2014 Edited Dee Reynolds and Matthew Reason A key interdisciplinary concept in our understanding of social interaction across creative and cultural practices, kinesthetic empathy describes the ability to experience … Continue reading The Doodle Book was developed through the course of 2019/20 in collaboration with Mind the Gap, artist Brian Hartley and a group of learning-disabled artists. The objective was to create … Continue reading Matthew Reason with photographs by Chris Nash Photography has long been utilised as a medium that allows us to capture, see and reflect upon the world around us. This is … Continue reading Talking About Theatre consists of a series of booklets designed to facilitated children and young people’s post-show conversations about theatre and dance. Operating through a series of questions or instructions, … Continue reading Qualitative audience research frequently produces large amounts of unruly data. For myself the process of beginning to make sense of or find routes through the unordered mass of material that … Continue reading ‘Where in your body?’ is a single question online audience research survey, piloted for performances of 5 Soldiers by Rosie Kay Dance Company and now also disseminated to Scottish Ballet … Continue reading One of my earliest pieces of research into theatre audiences explored young people’s perceptions of liveness in performance. Theatre is frequently defined by its ‘liveness’: that is by how it … Continue reading Does giving children plasticine help when interviewing them about watching dance? I have previous used visual arts workshops with groups of spectators to explore their experiences of dance and theatre. … Continue reading 5 Soldiers, by the Rosie Kay Dance Company, is a contemporary dance performance that looks at how the human body remains essential to war, even in the 21st century. In … Continue reading Archive, Empathy, Memory: The Resurrection of Joyce Reason This paper uses the prism of archival, ancestral research to consider the nature of our relationship to the lives of the … Continue reading Theatre Pages is a (maga)zine produced by staff and students on the theatre and drama programme at York St John University. Launched in 2011 and produced three times a year … Continue reading Trenthem Books 2010. “This inspirational book, that cares passionately about the child’s gaze, should be welcomed and cherished.” (Tony Graham Artistic Director, Unicorn Theatre) “…a colourful and fascinating account of … Continue reading Storyknowing describes a series of activities, workshops, articles and conferences explores how we know in and through story. For two years between 2013-15, the International Centre for Arts and Narrative … Continue reading Edited by Matthew Reason, Lynne Conner, Katya Johanson and Ben Walmsley. Forthcoming 2021. Without an audience there is arguably no performance. Yet for a long time the serious and systematic … Continue reading Thanks to the hard work and dedication of Kaori Nakayama, my book The Young Audience has been translated and published in Japanese (2018). To mark this publication the book has … Continue reading Drawing is at once immediate, and yet takes time. The marks on paper – pencil, crayon, ink, pen – appear instantly, they are real and absolute, but the process as … Continue reading The Watching Dance project used qualitative audience research and neuroscience to explore how dance spectators respond to and identify with dance. It was a multidisciplinary project, involving collaboration across four … Continue reading
Creative Writing and Audience Research
Theatres of Learning Disability
Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact in Theatre, Music and Art
Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Contexts
Doodle Book (part 1)
Photography & the Representation of Kinesthetic Empathy
Talking About Theatre
Interactive Mind Map
Where in your body?
Young Audiences and Live Theatre
Researching with plasticine
5 Soldiers Audience Research
Archive, Empathy, Memory
Theatre Pages
The Young Audience: Exploring and Enhancing Children’s Experiences of Theatre
Storyknowing
Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts
The Young Audiences – Japanese Translation & New Forward
Drawing and Audience Research
Watching Dance: Kinesthetic Empathy
Matthew Reason 