Legitimate questions, but maybe ignoring the subtleties that really
exist in a performance.  Lately I've been having a different take on the
performer "vs." audience presumption while singing western-European-derived
music.  More and more, my own experience in concerts is circular rather
than a linear back-and-forth of attention or a fourth wall (as actors tend
to describe the experience of "performing" on a proscenium stage).  I think
that as performers season, become more at home with themselves onstage and
with the unknown quantity of "what does the 'audience' bring tonight?",
there is a mutual process of change that goes on in a concert setting.
This is not unlike more overtly participatory forms of music -- Indonesian
kechuk, drumming circles, etc.  It is simply more subtly participatory.

I was very struck recently by a remark made by actress Glenn Close:  "Good
live theater disturbs molecules.  [She then elaborated on the reciprocal
energic interchange between actors and audience.] Everyone should leave the
theater a little bit rearranged." And in fact, we all do, performers and
listeners alike, and not necessarily in a linear or one-for-one way.  One
of the reasons live performance will always be irreplaceable.

as for whether one might be happier participating in music of Cage, Reich,
at al., ca depend.  Cage used silence and shock (and sometimes, silence as
a shock) in so much of his music that to participate audibly would likely
mean to lose the impact and message.  And, well, here's an experience of
doing AGMA chorus work in Philip Glass's The Civil Wars, Rome portion,
several years ago in NYC:  While the solos were arching and lovely, soaring
as they did over the ritualistic rhythmic textures laid down by the
instrumentalists and chorus, all the players and choristers found ourselves
complaining bitterly about the piece because our parts were on the one hand
so monotonous and on the other hand required such unremitting counting to
make sure that when one DID have one of those minute pitch or timing
changes came at the right time...all of use would rather have been
listening to the piece than doing it, under those circumstances!

I think the hallmark of a communal experience is when we can lose ourselves
-- our ego, our fear, our everyday sense of isolation/constraint/limitation
-- for awhile in the shift that takes place in the attending community's
vibratory level.  (We are talking about vibration, after all, anytime we
are talking about music.) That can happen whether we are audible
participants or whether we are "simply" bringing a quality of conscious,
open listening to the procedings.  So I think there's less difference
between "western" and "tribal"/indigenous musics than there appears at
first glance.  It's all about getting together to tell stories around the
campfire, as it were.

Or that's what I think tonight, anyhow.

Danielle Woerner
www.hvmusic.com/artists/danielle