Experimental theatre
Encyclopedia
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre
that began in the late 19th century (Alfred Jarry
) as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical. It is used more or less interchangeably with the term avant-garde theatre. Experimental theatre is what it is, trying something new.
Like other forms of avantgarde it was created as a response to a perceived general cultural crisis. Despite different political and formal approaches all avant-garde theatre opposed bourgeois literary theatre. It tried to introduce a different use of language
, of the body
, to change the mode of perception
and to create a new, more active relation with the audience.
One thing that was challenged more and more is the role of the audience in performance. Traditionally audiences are seen as passive observers. Many practitioners wanted to challenge this. For example, Brecht wanted to mobilise his audiences by asking them questions and not giving them answers, thereby getting them to think for themselves; Augusto Boal wanted his audiences to react directly to the action; Artaud wanted to affect them directly on a subconscious level.
Peter Brook talked of there being a triangle of relationships within a performance: the performers' internal relationships, the performers' relationships to each other on stage, and the relationship with the audience. Welfare State International spoke of there being a ceremonial circle, the cast providing one half, the audience providing another, and there being the energy in the middle.
Aside from ideological implications of the role of the audience; theatres and performances addressed the audience in a variety of ways. The proscenium arch was called to question, and performances started venturing into non-theatrical spaces
, audiences were engaged differently, often as active participants in the action on a highly practical level and in many ways for many reasons. When a proscenium arch was used, it may have been subverted.
Audience participation can range from asking for volunteers onto a stage, to screaming in their faces. By using audience participation, the performer invites the audience to feel a certain way and by doing so they may change their attitudes, values and beliefs in regard to the performance's topic. For example, in a performance on bullying the character may approach an audience member, size them up and challenge them to a fight on the spot. The terrified look on their face will strongly express the message of bullying to that spectator and those around them.
Physically, theatre spaces took on different shapes, and practitioners re-explored different ways of staging performance and a lot of research was done into Elizabethan and Greek theatre spaces. This was integrated into the mainstream, the National Theatre
in London
, for example, has a highly flexible, somewhat Elizabethan traverse space, a proscenium space and an amphitheatre space (the Olivier) and the directors and architects consciously wanted to break away from the primacy of the proscenium arch. Jacques Copeau
was an important figure in terms of stage design, and was very keen to break away from the excesses of naturalism to get to a more pared down, representational way of looking at the stage.
) see a performance environment as being one in which a micro-society can emerge and can lead a way of life alternative to that of the broader society in which they are placed.
Augusto Boal
used the Legislative Theatre on the people of Rio to find out what they wanted to change about their community, and he used the audience reaction to change legislation in his role as a councillor. Experimental theatre encourages directors to make society, or our audience at least, change their attitudes, values and beliefs on an issue and to do something about it.
eventually emerged.
Within this many different structures and possibilities exist for performance makers, and a large variety of different models are used by performers today. The primacy of the director and writer has been challenged directly, and the directors role can exist as an outside eye or a facilitator
rather than the supreme authority figure they once would have been able to assume.
As well as hierarchies being challenged, performers have been challenging their individual roles. An inter-disciplinary approach becomes more and more common as performers have become less willing to be shoe-horned into specialist technical roles. Simultaneous to this, other disciplines have started breaking down their barriers. Dance
, music
, visual art and writing
become blurred in many cases, and artists with completely separate trainings and backgrounds collaborate very comfortably.
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
that began in the late 19th century (Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
) as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical. It is used more or less interchangeably with the term avant-garde theatre. Experimental theatre is what it is, trying something new.
Like other forms of avantgarde it was created as a response to a perceived general cultural crisis. Despite different political and formal approaches all avant-garde theatre opposed bourgeois literary theatre. It tried to introduce a different use of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, of the body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
, to change the mode of perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
and to create a new, more active relation with the audience.
Relationships to audience
"… a necessary theatre, one in which there is only a practical difference between actor and audience, not a fundamental one."One thing that was challenged more and more is the role of the audience in performance. Traditionally audiences are seen as passive observers. Many practitioners wanted to challenge this. For example, Brecht wanted to mobilise his audiences by asking them questions and not giving them answers, thereby getting them to think for themselves; Augusto Boal wanted his audiences to react directly to the action; Artaud wanted to affect them directly on a subconscious level.
Peter Brook talked of there being a triangle of relationships within a performance: the performers' internal relationships, the performers' relationships to each other on stage, and the relationship with the audience. Welfare State International spoke of there being a ceremonial circle, the cast providing one half, the audience providing another, and there being the energy in the middle.
Aside from ideological implications of the role of the audience; theatres and performances addressed the audience in a variety of ways. The proscenium arch was called to question, and performances started venturing into non-theatrical spaces
Site specific theatre
Site-specific theatre is most simply defined as a performance which exists in a particular place. However, there remains a widespread debate about any more precise a definition. Some argue that any performance which takes place outside a theatre can be labeled site-specific...
, audiences were engaged differently, often as active participants in the action on a highly practical level and in many ways for many reasons. When a proscenium arch was used, it may have been subverted.
Audience participation can range from asking for volunteers onto a stage, to screaming in their faces. By using audience participation, the performer invites the audience to feel a certain way and by doing so they may change their attitudes, values and beliefs in regard to the performance's topic. For example, in a performance on bullying the character may approach an audience member, size them up and challenge them to a fight on the spot. The terrified look on their face will strongly express the message of bullying to that spectator and those around them.
Physically, theatre spaces took on different shapes, and practitioners re-explored different ways of staging performance and a lot of research was done into Elizabethan and Greek theatre spaces. This was integrated into the mainstream, the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, for example, has a highly flexible, somewhat Elizabethan traverse space, a proscenium space and an amphitheatre space (the Olivier) and the directors and architects consciously wanted to break away from the primacy of the proscenium arch. Jacques Copeau
Jacques Copeau
Jacques Copeau was an influential French theatre director, producer, actor, and dramatist. Before he founded his famous Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris, he wrote theater reviews for several Parisian journals, worked at the Georges Petit Gallery where he organized exhibits of artists' works...
was an important figure in terms of stage design, and was very keen to break away from the excesses of naturalism to get to a more pared down, representational way of looking at the stage.
Social contexts
Some groups have been prominent in changing the social face of theatre, rather than its stylistic appearance. Performers have used their skills to engage in a form of cultural activism. This may be in the form of didactic agit-prop theatre, or some (such as Welfare State InternationalWelfare State International
Welfare State International were an influential performance group based in the UK and founded in 1968 by John Fox and Sue Gill. Fox was, and remains, a vociferous proponent of 'celebratory theatre' and an anarchic, energetic and imaginative approach to creating theatre. In 2006 they felt the...
) see a performance environment as being one in which a micro-society can emerge and can lead a way of life alternative to that of the broader society in which they are placed.
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements...
used the Legislative Theatre on the people of Rio to find out what they wanted to change about their community, and he used the audience reaction to change legislation in his role as a councillor. Experimental theatre encourages directors to make society, or our audience at least, change their attitudes, values and beliefs on an issue and to do something about it.
Methods of creation
Traditionally, there is a highly hierarchical method of creating theatre - a writer writes a script, a director interprets it for the stage, the performers perform the director and writers collective vision. Various practitioners started challenging this and started seeing the performers more and more as creative artists in their own right. This started with giving them more and more interpretive freedom and devised theatreDevised theatre
Devised theatre is a form of theatre where the script originates not from a writer or writers, but from collaborative, usually improvisatory, work by a group of people...
eventually emerged.
Within this many different structures and possibilities exist for performance makers, and a large variety of different models are used by performers today. The primacy of the director and writer has been challenged directly, and the directors role can exist as an outside eye or a facilitator
Facilitation
The term facilitation is broadly used to describe any activity which makes tasks for others easy. For example:* Facilitation is used in business and organizational settings to ensure the designing and running of successful meetings....
rather than the supreme authority figure they once would have been able to assume.
As well as hierarchies being challenged, performers have been challenging their individual roles. An inter-disciplinary approach becomes more and more common as performers have become less willing to be shoe-horned into specialist technical roles. Simultaneous to this, other disciplines have started breaking down their barriers. Dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, visual art and writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
become blurred in many cases, and artists with completely separate trainings and backgrounds collaborate very comfortably.
Physical effects
Experimental theatre alters traditional conventions of space, movement, mood, tension, language, symbolism, and other elements.Writers
- Antonin ArtaudAntonin ArtaudAntoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
(Theatre of Cruelty) - Carmelo BeneCarmelo BeneCarmelo Bene was an Italian actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in 20 films between 1967 and 2002...
- Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
(Epic Theatre) - Dario FoDario FoDario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress...
- Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
- Isabelle Junot
- Young Jean LeeYoung Jean LeeYoung Jean Lee is a Brooklyn-based playwright and director working in experimental theater. She is the artistic director of Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, a not-for-profit theater company dedicated to producing her work...
- Richard Maxwell
- Luigi PirandelloLuigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
- Bryan ReynoldsBryan ReynoldsBryan Reynolds is an American critical theorist, performance theorist, and Shakespeare scholar who developed the combined social theory, performance aesthetics, and research methodology known as transversal poetics...
(Transversal Theater Company)
Directors
- Theo AdamsTheo AdamsTheo Adams , previously referred to as The-O, is a performance artist and director of the contemporary theatrical performance art group Theo Adams Company.-Personal life:...
- Eugenio BarbaEugenio BarbaEugenio Barba is an Italian author and theatre director based in Denmark. He is the founder of the Odin Theatre and the International School of Theatre Anthropology, both located in Holstebro, Denmark.-Biography:...
- Carmelo BeneCarmelo BeneCarmelo Bene was an Italian actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in 20 films between 1967 and 2002...
- Augusto BoalAugusto BoalAugusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements...
- Peter BrookPeter BrookPeter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
- Robert CohenRobert Cohen (acting theorist)Robert Cohen is an American university professor, theatre director, playwright, and drama critic. He has written many books on theatre, two dramatic anthologies and many plays, among other works. Cohen has conducted advanced teaching residencies in numerous countries and much of the United States...
(Transversal Theater Company) - Richard ForemanRichard ForemanRichard Foreman is an American playwright and avant-garde theater pioneer. He is the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.-Life :...
- Andre GregoryAndre GregoryAndre William Gregory is an American theatre director, writer and actor.Gregory studied at Harvard University.During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice In Wonderland , based on Lewis...
- Jerzy GrotowskiJerzy GrotowskiJerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and innovator of experimental theatre, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts....
(Poor Theatre) - Elizabeth LeCompteElizabeth LeCompteElizabeth LeCompte is a founding member and the theater director of experimental theater collective The Wooster Group .-Biography:...
- Young Jean LeeYoung Jean LeeYoung Jean Lee is a Brooklyn-based playwright and director working in experimental theater. She is the artistic director of Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, a not-for-profit theater company dedicated to producing her work...
- Tadeusz KantorTadeusz KantorTadeusz Kantor was a Polish painter, assemblage artist, set designer and theatre director. Kantor is renowned for his revolutionary theatrical performances in Poland and abroad.- Life and career :...
- Caden Manson "(Real Time Film)"
- Vsevolod MeyerholdVsevolod MeyerholdVsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
(Biomechanics) - Ariane MnouchkineAriane MnouchkineAriane Mnouchkine is a world-renowned French stage director. She founded the Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble Théâtre du Soleil in 1964. She has written and directed 1789 and Molière , and in 1989, she directed La Nuit Miraculeuse...
- Ellen StewartEllen StewartEllen Stewart was an American theater director and producer and the founder of La MaMa, E.T.C. . In the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.-Biography:Ellen Stewart was either born in Alexandria, Louisiana or Chicago,...
- Robert WilsonRobert Wilson (director)Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
- Jacques CopeauJacques CopeauJacques Copeau was an influential French theatre director, producer, actor, and dramatist. Before he founded his famous Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in Paris, he wrote theater reviews for several Parisian journals, worked at the Georges Petit Gallery where he organized exhibits of artists' works...
- Richard SchechnerRichard SchechnerRichard Schechner is Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University , editor of TDR: The Drama Review, and artistic director of East Coast Artists. His BA is from Cornell University , MA from the University of Iowa , and PhD from Tulane University...
- Giorgio StrehlerGiorgio StrehlerGiorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...
- Jean Pierre Voos
- Tadashi SuzukiTadashi SuzukiTadashi Suzuki is a theatre director, writer and philosopher working out of Toga, Toyama, Japan. Suzuki is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga , organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival , co-founder of the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in Saratoga...
- Judith MalinaJudith MalinaJudith Malina is an American theater and film actress, writer, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre.-Early life:...
- Julian BeckJulian BeckJulian Beck was an American actor, director, poet, and painter.-Early life:Beck was born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City, the son of Mabel Lucille , a teacher, and Irving Beck, a businessman. He briefly attended Yale University, but dropped out to pursue writing and...
- Joseph Chaiikin
United Kingdom
- CompliciteCompliciteThe British theatre company Complicite was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. Its original name was Théâtre de Complicité. "The Company's inimitable style of visual and devised theatre [has] an emphasis on strong, corporeal, poetic and surrealist image supporting...
- Welfare State InternationalWelfare State InternationalWelfare State International were an influential performance group based in the UK and founded in 1968 by John Fox and Sue Gill. Fox was, and remains, a vociferous proponent of 'celebratory theatre' and an anarchic, energetic and imaginative approach to creating theatre. In 2006 they felt the...
- The Gecko
- The Danuki Ensemble
- Theo Adams CompanyTheo AdamsTheo Adams , previously referred to as The-O, is a performance artist and director of the contemporary theatrical performance art group Theo Adams Company.-Personal life:...
United States
- Poor Dog Group
- Double Edge TheatreDouble Edge TheatreDouble Edge Theatre is a physical theatre company located in Ashfield, Massachusetts. Artistic Director Stacy Klein co-founded the theater with designer Carroll Durrand in 1982 while at Tufts University. The company uses physical training and improvisation to create original performances...
- The Satori GroupThe Satori GroupThe Satori Group is a Seattle-based theatre ensemble that unites innovative multi-media, dynamic physical styles, and contemporary content in live performance.- History :...
(Seattle) - Big Art GroupBig Art GroupBig Art Group is a New York City-based experimental performance ensemble that uses language and media to push formal boundaries of theatre, film and visual arts to create culturally transgressive works...
- Bread and Puppet TheaterBread and Puppet TheaterThe Bread and Puppet Theater is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, currently based in Glover, Vermont...
- Neo-FuturistsNeo-FuturistsThe Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988. Neo-Futurism, inspired by the Italian Futurist movement from the early 20th century, is based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity.-Aesthetic:...
- Elevator Repair ServiceElevator Repair ServiceElevator Repair Service are a New York-based theater ensemble founded by director John Collins and a group of actors in 1991.ERS have performed in various New York including Performance Space 122, The Performing Garage, HERE, The Ontological at St. Mark's Church, The Flea, The Kitchen, and Soho...
- Great Jones Repertory CompanyGreat Jones Repertory CompanyThe Great Jones Repertory Company is the name of the main performing company at La MaMa, E.T.C. in New York City. They take their name from the street where the main rehearsal space for La MaMa is located, just a block south of the theater itself. The artistic director for the company was Ellen...
at La MaMa, E.T.C. - The Living TheatreThe Living TheatreThe Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...
- Mabou MinesMabou MinesMabou Mines is an avant-garde theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City.-History:Mabou Mines is a collaborative, avant-garde theater company based in New York City...
- Margolis Brown Adaptors CompanyMargolis Brown Adaptors CompanyThe Margolis Brown Adaptors Company is an internationally touring physical theatre company that also houses the Margolis Method Training Center now located in Highland, New York. It was established in New York City in 1984 by Kari Margolis and Tony Brown...
(New York) - The Open TheaterThe Open TheaterThe Open Theater was an experimental theatre group active from 1963 to 1973.It was founded in New York City by a group of former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton, and joined shortly thereafter by director Joseph Chaikin, formerly of The Living Theatre, and Peter Feldman...
- Ontological-Hysteric TheaterOntological-Hysteric TheaterThe Ontological-Hysteric Theater was founded in 1968 by Richard Foreman. According to his website, his aim was-Total Theater:According to his website,-Production history:...
- Playhouse of the RidiculousPlayhouse of the RidiculousThe Theatre of the Ridiculous is a theatrical genre that began as an American movement in New York in 1965 with the beginnings of "The Play-House of the Ridiculous" and the spin-off group formed in 1967 "The Ridiculous Theatrical Company"....
- Squat TheatreSquat TheatreSquat Theatre is a theatre group who moved to New York City in 1978.Squat Theatre was founded by artists, writers, designers, musicians in Budapest, Hungary in the late 1960s. They were known as Kassak Studio, and later, during their underground years in Budapest as "apartment theatre". Members of...
- The Tantalus Theatre GroupThe Tantalus Theatre GroupThe Tantalus Theatre Group is a Chicago, The Tantalus Theatre Group is a [[Chicago]], The Tantalus Theatre Group is a [[Chicago]], [[Illinois[[ based collaborative-arts organization focusing on [[Experimental theatre|experimental theater]]...
- The Wooster GroupThe Wooster GroupThe Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged during 1975-1980 from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group and took its name in 1980...
- Provincetown PlayersProvincetown PlayersThe Provincetown Players was an amateur group of writers and artists who, at the early part of the 20th Century, wanted to see a change in American theatre and created a company committed to producing new plays by exclusively American playwrights...
- Magic Theatre (Omaha)Magic Theatre (Omaha)The Magic Theatre is located at 325 South 16th Street in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded in 1968 by Jo Ann Schmidman, the theatre is designed to be an experimental theatre by and for people in the Midwest. The Magic Theatre has toured around the world, including the Suwon Castle...
- Skewed VisionsSkewed VisionsSkewed Visions is an arts company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota which produces site-specific performances and other multimedia works. Formed in 1996 by the artists Charles Campbell, Gülgün Kayim and Sean Kelley-Pegg, the group produces site-specific works that have sometimes been seen as...
(Minneapolis) - Performance Space 122Performance Space 122Performance Space 122, generally known as P.S. 122, is a not-for-profit arts organization and one of the longest standing venues dedicated to contemporary performance art in New York City. Founded in 1979 in the abandoned Public School 122 building at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street in the East...
(New York) - Corner Theatre ETCCorner Theatre ETCCorner Theatre E.T.C. was an American experimental theater in operation from 1968–1987, a not-for-profit cultural organization located in Baltimore, Maryland, which provided resources for new playwrights, designers, directors, actors, dancers, and other artists seeking alternative means and...
(Baltimore) - Young Jean Lee's Theater Company
- The National Theater of The United States of America
- Big Dance
- Nature Theater of Oklahoma
- Radiohole
- Bedlam TheatreBedlam TheatreBedlam Theatre is a student-run theatre owned by the University of Edinburgh and notable for being the oldest student-run theatre in Britain.It is housed in the former New North Free Church building at the foot of George IV Bridge in Edinburgh; a building which was designed by Thomas Hamilton, an...
(Minneapolis)
See also
- Speculations: An Essay on the TheaterSpeculations: An Essay on the TheaterSpeculations: An Essay on the Theater is a treatise by one of today's major experimental playwrights: Mac Wellman. It was published with the collection of plays entitled The Difficulty of Crossing a Field...
- Mac WellmanMac WellmanMac Wellman is an American playwright, author, and poet. Wellman is best known for his experimental work in the theater which rebels against theatrical conventions, often abandoning such traditional elements as plot and character altogether...
- The Flea TheaterThe Flea TheaterThe Flea Theater, founded in 1996, is a theatre in the TriBeCa section of New York City. It presents primarily new American theatre, and provides a venue for film stars to act on a very small stage. It is the home of "The Bat Theater Company", an Obie Award winning resident acting troupe of...
- Performance artPerformance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
- Elizabeth LeCompteElizabeth LeCompteElizabeth LeCompte is a founding member and the theater director of experimental theater collective The Wooster Group .-Biography:...
- The Wooster GroupThe Wooster GroupThe Wooster Group is a New York City-based experimental theater company known for creating numerous original dramatic works. It gradually emerged during 1975-1980 from Richard Schechner's The Performance Group and took its name in 1980...
- Ontological-Hysteric TheaterOntological-Hysteric TheaterThe Ontological-Hysteric Theater was founded in 1968 by Richard Foreman. According to his website, his aim was-Total Theater:According to his website,-Production history:...
- Richard ForemanRichard ForemanRichard Foreman is an American playwright and avant-garde theater pioneer. He is the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.-Life :...
- Richard SchechnerRichard SchechnerRichard Schechner is Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University , editor of TDR: The Drama Review, and artistic director of East Coast Artists. His BA is from Cornell University , MA from the University of Iowa , and PhD from Tulane University...
- HappeningHappeningA happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere , are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience...
s - Allan KaprowAllan KaprowAllan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years...
- FluxusFluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
- IntermediaIntermediaIntermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
- Dick HigginsDick HigginsDick Higgins was a composer, poet, printer, and early Fluxus artist. Higgins was born in Cambridge, England, but raised in the United States in various parts of New England, including Worcester, Massachusetts, Putney, Vermont, and Concord, New Hampshire.Like other Fluxus artists, Higgins studied...
- Marina AbramovićMarina AbramovicMarina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
- Avant-gardeAvant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
- History of theatreHistory of theatreThe history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other activities...
- Post-modernism
- Physical theatrePhysical theatrePhysical theatre is used to describe any mode of performance that pursues storytelling or drama through primarily and secondarily physical and mental means. There are several quite distinct but indistinct traditions of performance which all describe themselves using the term "physical theatre",...
- VestAndPageVestAndPageVestAndPage is an artist duo founded in 2006 by Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes in contemporary performance, Live art, visual art, and video art, spherology and impermanence, fragility, transformation, memory activation and communication....
- [ [Muktya Natya{Open Theatre)]
Further reading
- Arnold Aronson: American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History (Theatre Production Studies), Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0415241391