The Art of Immersion with Smell and Sensorial Theatre Language
In recent decades, the trend or the need for an experience of the effect of immersion into theatre events, other branches of art, tourism, everyday business and private life has become quite evident. We are used to audio-visual communication, which, from the Renaissance onwards, became the domina...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani) & Slovenian Theatre Institute (Slovenski gledališki inštitut)
2021-12-01
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| Series: | Amfiteater |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.slogi.si/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Amfiteater_9_2_Raz_07_Areh_Jenic_EN.pdf |
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| Summary: | In recent decades, the trend or the need for an experience of the effect of immersion
into theatre events, other branches of art, tourism, everyday business and private life
has become quite evident. We are used to audio-visual communication, which, from the
Renaissance onwards, became the dominant channel for delivering messages, while other
senses became less important.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the role of smell in theatre practices was neglected,
and more important senses took over the place of communication and staging. Rarely
it was used as a direct prop, but always very carefully, because, according to many
experts, it cannot be controlled like sound and light. However, we have forgotten that
the smell, especially in combination with the sound, can have a strong emotional impact
on a spectator. Like the other senses, the scent recreates the context of memories and
can evoke an intense reliving of emotions and events. It can also provoke an evaluation
or re-evaluation of the past, thereby affecting the perception of the present. Reality is
perceived through the adaptation of sensory information, which is shaped and interpreted
under the influence of past experiences. Experiences create expectations, and expectations
create our subjective reality considering everyday life and theatrical performance. This
relationship is especially noticeable in sensorial theatre.
In the last decade, an effort has been made to bring scents and other tools of sensorial
theatre back to the stage, just as – according to foreign sources – they were an important
part of events in antiquity. In this way, the stage can be enriched with an additional
dimension of communication and expression. The paper presents various methods and
experiments on the use of scent and other tools of sensorial theatre, evaluating their
phenomenology and effectiveness from the perspective of the performing arts and
psychological science. |
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| ISSN: | 1855-4539 1855-850X |