Paper short abstract:

When your audience has to stay at home, how do you make a tactile performance about weather and climate change? In 'Talking in the Rain' (2020), two performing arts companies and one anthropologist explored digital tactility in a Zoom-based, interactive journey through the weathers of Helsinki.

Paper long abstract:

In 2019, two performing arts companies (Ferske Scener, NO, and Reality Research Center, FI) and myself as anthropologist formed a collaboration to produce the performance 'Talking in the Rain'. Our aim was to explore how everyday experiences of the weather could relate to the less tangible concept of climate change. The performance was planned to involve the audience in tactile experiences of heat, cold, water and snow, using artistic strategies to better grapple with the changing climate and what it means to different people.

During 2020, the covid-19 pandemic would shift both the format and the manner of audience involvement radically. The premiere was planned for the dance festival Moving in November (Helsinki, 2020), and there was great uncertainty of whether a performance was possible at all. The group therefore redesigned and adapted the performance to a Zoom-based format, with performers roaming the weathers of Helsinki, sending postcards from distant places, and 'zooming' into the homes of the audience. Ticket-holders received a parcel by bicycle courier, and swapped between observing and collectively participating during the performance. In this way, the performance strategy of experiencing the weather with the audience instead became an exploration of how tactile weather experiences could be created at the interface of digital and physical encounters. This paper zooms in on how 'Talking in the rain' adapted to a state of exception, discussing how collaborations and spatial strategies were creatively adapted to build an environment the audience would trust and engage in.