Sofia Rahaniotis - The Roof is on Fire - Week 2 Assignment

To engage the audience before the piece technically even begins, by using the underground parking structure as a type of waiting area, and then leading them onto the roof to watch the performance is highly effective because the literal ascension in physical space to the high schoolers challenges the hierarchical stereotype of the Oakland students being lower in status than those watching them perform. Placing the audience outside of the students’ cars, where the conversations and action takes place, is also a highly effective engagement strategy because it somewhat ironically heightens the sense of segregation and separation that this piece works to combat; instead of the audience being the entity at the central, attention-holding location, it is the students. This effectively structures a reality that is unlike the reality for many of the privileged individuals watching the performance. Another effective engagement strategy is the unscripted dialogue between the students. This furthers the immersive nature of the piece because it creates a sense that the audience is involved in the conversation it witnesses, but simultaneously, there is a deliberate exclusion of the audience by the students in the dialogue to parallel their own experiences. The unscripted dialogue is also an effective engagement strategy because it allows the students to maintain an identity separate from a “performer” or type of puppet that would antithesize the message the piece attempts to convey. In making the documentary of this piece, the engagement strategy to utilize a narrator was ineffective because it gave the work a traditional structure and stylized simplicity that the piece seemed to be working to fight against.