What are your views on audience participation?

[Carl Gough]

I've found myself pondering about audience participation recently and was wondering what the range of views on this subject were.

While children will readily join in (making such attempts quite easy), many of my audiences are mixed and I feel this requires a different approach. I know from past jobs that you usually have to read the audience and do some warm up before launching into any involved participation but can anyone sugest some short participation stories that would appeal to mixed audiences. Folktale based would be ideal but I can work and adapt any other suggestions

Essentially I'm looking for something I can use in situations where I want to lighten the mood and feel this might be an option (but still not sure). All contributions welcome.

Many thanks

Carl

[Lois Sprengnether Keel (LoiS)]

Hi Carl,

I find the more mixed the audience, the more audience participation helps bring an audience together.  There's an interesting exception, teens.  I tend to suggest they try it and use the participation to learn and make it easier to re-tell the stories.  Emphasizing that participation helps make the program more fun also can is worth pointing out. 

Take a look at the various anthologies by Margaret Read MacDonald to get an idea about the various ways to incorporate participation into your stories.  Don't be afraid to make up your own chants in your stories.  Repeated motions also are a great way to get your audience participating.  Look at your current story repertoire for the light fun stories you want around the beginning of your program to see if you might be able to adapt them just a bit.  Since you especially love Celtic stories, there should be a lot where you can repeat something and encourage your audience to join you.

[Joyce A. Zucker]

Most of my stories are for children, but I tell some to adults.  I've had good participation.  Occassionally there's a poor responcive audience.  Sometimes it's good to have one or two of your own people--to get things started.

[Jeffrey MD Stormer]

As long as they're listening, they're participating. I use story primarily to teach and to promote healing-(teacher, scout leader, chaplain, counselor)-so immediate feedback or participation as you have posited here isn't as critical for me. Since I usually have a longer term relationship with my audience, I have opportunity to see the impact various stories might have, either directly or indirectly (reports from others).
For immediate feedback, I look for the bidding heads, smiles (some of which can be very subtle), wrinkled brows, etc. Questions afterwards are also pretty good indicators.
FWIW. YMMV

[Carl Gough]

Hi Jeffrey,

I'm jealous. I wish I had the opportunity to observe the impact of certain stories on people over a longer time frame. It must be very satisfying.