Abstract
This perspective analyses and reflects upon the experience of conceiving, curating and participating in Bodies:On:Live – Magdalena:On:Line, the first online multi-platform Magdalena Festival, bringing together digitally competent artists with creative roots in the immateriality of the internet, in dialogue about current shifts in performance making with performers, writers, and directors declaring their uneasiness towards online adaptations of live work. As part of the global reaction to the standstill brought about by the Covid pandemic, we argue that shifts in practice for women in contemporary theatre associated with the Magdalena network – whether as an attempt for immediate artistic survival or a conscious experimental choice – were not exclusively determined by the available sharing of technical knowledge, or by the need to increase awareness of the digital medium in order to gain experience of different working modalities, but served a participatory and social purpose. These conditions were surfacing due to the digital space manifesting as a specific format of gathering through the Zoom windows and other platforms, which framed the encounters within a democratic performance arena, making the boundaries between participation and spectatorship porous. Therefore, the shift provoked by the festival not only pertains to the aesthetic sphere, but it is dynamically and organically geared towards the recognition of new working contexts arising from the unsettling experience of ‘disembodiment’ – as an ontological paradox of the original in-person Magdalena festival – and the embedded argument of the creative use of new technologies for a more sustainable and accessible future of performance making, both live and digital. 
Highlights
This perspective analyses and reflects upon the experience of conceiving, curating and participating as artists and spectators in Bodies:On:Live – Magdalena:On:Line initiated by Elizabeth de Roza and co-organised by Helen Varley Jamieson, Christina Papagiannouli, Janaina Matter, Karin Ahlström, Nur Khairiyah, Suzon Fuks and Zoe Gudović
Conceived as a cross-cultural and inclusive digital space for creative exchange within the Magdalena network of women in contemporary theatre, this first online Magdalena Festival, which took place in June 2021, was driven by the intention to foster a space and a time for celebrating artistic identities in the unprecedented circumstances arising from the Covid19 pandemic
As the pandemic generated the building blocks of the online Magdalena gathering, its embedded argument for a more sustainable and accessible future of performance making, both live and digital, opened a shared opportunity to think creatively outside the box, to break the isolation and loneliness imposed by the lockdowns, and for each of us attending to become curious learners of new and diverse approaches with a non-judgemental attitude
Summary
This perspective analyses and reflects upon the experience of conceiving, curating and participating as artists and spectators in Bodies:On:Live – Magdalena:On:Line initiated by Elizabeth de Roza and co-organised by Helen Varley Jamieson, Christina Papagiannouli, Janaina Matter, Karin Ahlström, Nur Khairiyah, Suzon Fuks and Zoe Gudović. Our aim is to assess and discuss the shifts in practice within the festival, which it is argued were not just the product of creative exploration of (and adaptations to) new technologies but served a participatory and social purpose, made possible by the format of gathering through online platforms.
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