Opera co-creation: From collaborative translation to artistic co-creation in audiovisual translation and accessibility

Abstract

Research on collaborative translation has expanded in recent years, with a variety of terms such as community or volunteer translation being used to refer to these practices. This article focuses on the Traction project as an instance of artistic co-creation between professionals and nonprofessionals in opera, and it suggests that the Traction approach could be usefully utilised in the context of audiovisual translation and media accessibility. After an introduction to the challenges of 21st century opera and their quest for new audiences, the article discusses the concept of artistic co-creation. It also presents how opera co-creation is being assessed in Traction. The co-creation process and its evaluation are then related to translation and accessibility to propose artistic co-creation as a new approach to collaborative practices which can benefit both professionals and non-professionals.