Creating an Audience – Social Implication of Aesthetic Experience

The study of aesthetic concepts gives us an understanding of the nature of aesthetics either as the experience or as the judgment of beauty and emotions. In contemporary times, one can also extend the scope of aesthetics to the field of sociology. There are many attempts in the field which have suggested the idea of Communitarian aesthetics. In this paper, I attempt to understand the sociological implications of the experience of aesthetics with the help of two theatre plays which were performed by a renowned theatre institution, Ninasam. Using certain concepts that are discussed in the theory of Rasa in India, I have attempted to understand the role of aesthetics in the ontological study of an audience of a theatre performance and argued for the importance of ‘collective’ in aesthetic appreciation.