audience participation

The issue of audience participation came up at a dinner last week. There are different acceptable behaviours for different genre such as clapping at a difficult part in ballet or stamping your feet at the end of a particularly good orchestral performance. We were talking about theatre etiquette and it was mentioned how much performers enjoy township audiences as the people are more responsive. Audiences will wave, cheer, stand up and sing along. Very different from the traditional audience that stays seated and politely claps at the end or hopefully rises to its feet calling "encore". It reminds me of going to the theatre as a child in the UK where you would clap in time and sing along to a favourite song and really feel part of the performances. Now those are happy memories. Angela