Volunteering to be uncomfortable

In talking about safe spaces with my advisor, he has suggested that at shows like Carapace, the audience volunteers to not be completely safe. They know they may be uncomfortable and they are okay with that. I haven’t seen that come out much in my observations or interviews yet but Joyce did say something that hints in that direction:

I've always had this suspicion that it's

the stranger on the bus.

I think we're all working to

have a connection specifically

with something foreign,

something strange,

something outside our field of knowledge

and we're looking to be broken out of our trances.

There are arguably times when people don’t want to be broken out of their trances - don’t want to be forced out of their comfortable and mindless somnambulism. This is a bit of voluntary discomfort.