APPLIED & INTERACTIVE T h e a t r e G u i d e |
Radical theatre aims to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions.
Throughout the 20th-Century, avant-garde theatre has been concerned with politics or activism in one way or another. From the actions of the Futurist Movement through to the groundswell in political theatre after the 1960s, radical thought has always been applied to theatrical forms.
Over the past four decades, activist groups have used ritual concepts, often including participation of the spectator, taken to the streets, and organized festivals and spectacles presenting ideas marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional.
Top : Radical Theatre
Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook of Radical Thinking by Richard Drain The New Radical Theatre Notebook by Arthur Sainer The Cambridge Companion to Brecht edited by Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art by Guerrilla Girls Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back by Guillermo Gomez-Peña
- Absurd Stories - Absurd literature and plays by the Australian author Virtue Fern. (Added: 16-Oct-2004 Hits: 748 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Apocryphal Theatre - Formed in July 2004 as a theatre laboratory under the direction of Julia Lee Barclay to explore further techniques in the creation of experimental theatre, with a focus on levels of presence. Apocryphal aims to make visible the received reality grid of our daily lives, regarding issues personal and political, through creating work involving a process of becoming rather than represent a static nature of being. (Added: 18-Feb-2007 Hits: 532 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Art is Permitted Everywhere - Campaign to reclaim public spaces for art making and urban expression. Covers events taking place mainly in New York City and San Francisco. (Added: 21-Jul-2004 Hits: 770 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- ATTACK! (Autonomni kulturni centar) - A non-profit, non-government, non-partisan, volunteer civil organization creating and spreading an alternative to the dominant culture, policy and economy. ATTACK provides space for anyone who wants to express themselves creatively and participate in the changes at the local level that lead to a free society in Zagreb, Croatia. (Added: 29-Apr-2004 Hits: 757 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Bread and Puppet Theater - Founded in 1962 by German-born sculptor Peter Schumann in New York City’s Lower East Side. Bread and Puppet performs on urgent social, political, and environmental issues. The company is based in Glover, Vermont. (Added: 28-Mar-2003 Hits: 1156 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- Buddies in Bad Times Theatre - Established in 1979, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is a Canadian, not-for-profit professional theatre company dedicated to the promotion of gay, lesbian and queer theatrical expression. Over a given season their 12 Alexander Street home in the heart of Toronto's queer village springs to life with mainstage theatrical productions, outrageous special events, youth initiatives, play development programmes, and late night weekend cabarets. (Added: 30-Oct-2003 Hits: 742 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Camden People’s Theatre - Located in central London, just minutes from the West End, the venue provides a unique space for the production and presentation of innovative contemporary theatre and live art by both emerging and established artists. CPT encourages the development of exciting, challenging arts and entertainment experiences created by a diverse range of artists that reflects the rich multi-cultural character of London. (Added: 18-Feb-2007 Hits: 514 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Completely Naked - A London based artistic partnership created by Claire Ward-Thornton and Pau Ros in November 1999. Specialized in interactive installations, they explore live arts, visual, digital and time-based languages and our ideas are based on a curiosity for human behaviour from individual to collective responses. Their projects creates psychological conflicts to activate the partaker's reaction. Completely Naked is an initiative aiming to provoke the promiscuity between the arts and the audience. (Added: 9-Dec-2004 Hits: 851 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Critical Art Ensemble - CAE is a collective of five artists of various specializations, dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory. Works include books, tactical media, and biotech projects. (Added: 12-Jun-2004 Hits: 941 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- Dario Fo - Nobel prize-winning playwright and theatre anarchist, who along with his wife, the actor Franca Rame, has faced frequent censorship and harassment from politicians and police. He is perhaps best known for experimenting with a narrative technique that combines re-examination of history with excursions into popular lore, a technique he fully developed with his play "Mistero Buffo". (Added: 18-Oct-2003 Hits: 929 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Descendants of Freedom - This play presents a triumphant documentary of how HIV positive queer youth of color resist oppression with risk and hope....set in the year 2083, the show imagines a future in which HIV/AIDS has been renamed ERIDS (Ethnic-Related Immune Deficieny Syndrome. (Added: 29-Apr-2004 Hits: 587 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- El Teatro Campesino - In 1965, Luis Valdez left the San Francisco Mime Troupe to join Cesar Chavez in organizing farmworkers into El Teatro Campesino (The Farmworkers Theater) to raise funds for the farmworker strike. By 1970, he had established what would come to be known as teatro chicano: agitprop theater, incorporating the spiritual and presentational style of commedia dell'arte with the character types, folklore and popular culture of the Mexican theatre. The company is based in San Juan Bautista, California. (Added: 28-Mar-2003 Hits: 914 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Electronic Disturbance Theatre and Electronic Civil Disobedience - Electronic Disturbance Theater is a group of activists and artists engaged in developing the theory and practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience. Working at the intersections of radical politics, recombinant and performance art, and computer software design, the group has produced an device called Flood Net - web software used to flood and block an opponent’s website. (Added: 17-Mar-2003 Hits: 1029 Rating: 7.75 Votes: 4) Rate It
- Fondazione Pontedera Teatro - Founded in 1974 as Centro per la Sperimentazione e la Ricerca Teatrale, aiming to provide a space of encounter for theatre cultures, group theatre, scholars, artists, and theatre makers. Since 1986 Pontedera has hosted the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski, which in 1996 became known as the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. (Added: 18-Jun-2003 Hits: 740 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- FoolishPeople - Founded in 1991 as the name under which John Harrigan developed and created live art and associated art projects. In 1994 FoolishPeople mutated into a development and production collective, with the aim to achieve interactive and populist live art. Typical content, genre and mediums they translate to live art are comic ooks, anime, horror and science fiction. (Added: 30-Dec-2003 Hits: 710 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 6) Rate It
- Fountainhead, The Collegium Television, Black International Cinema Berlin - An international, intercultural diplomacy organization based in Berlin, Germany since 1980. (Added: 8-Dec-2009 Hits: 185 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc. - On a mission from god to make the world safe for avant-garde art since 1976. What was once a major downtown New York alternative art space and performance presenter is now an online organization broadcasting live art and artists' ideas in the tradition of artists' books since the futurists. (Added: 24-Aug-2003 Hits: 462 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Freedom of Information Act (FBI) material on Bertolt Brecht - 1940s U.S. internal security investigation of Bertolt Brecht, author and poet, due to his affiliation with Soviet officials and other known communists. Consists of 369 pages, made available to the general public under the Freedom of Information Act. (Added: 6-Jul-2003 Hits: 817 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Goat Island - Chicago-based collaborative performance group founded in 1987 and incorporated in 1989 as a non-profit organization to produce collaborative performance works developed by its members for local, national, and international audiences. Members contribute to the conception, research, writing, choreography, documentation, and educational demands of the work, placing performances in non-theatrical sites when possible. (Added: 16-Oct-2004 Hits: 713 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- Gob Squad - A group of English and German artists who have been working collectively with performance, media and new technology since 1994. Produces performances, installations, films, and live events. The company has always sought to produce and present its work outside of arts institutions, often siting its projects in urban environments such as offices, houses, shops, hotels and railway stations, as well as producing work for radio and internet broadcast and pieces for galleries and theatres. (Added: 2-Aug-2005 Hits: 660 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Guerilla Performance Locator - Long before Karen Finley smeared chocolate on her body, Annie Sprinkle showed us her cervix or Orlan began her reconstructive cosmetic surgery, comely Edwardian ladies pioneered a hybrid art form in which the personal was political. Leslie Hill and Helen Paris pay homage to suffragettes by recreating some of their performances. This website aims to map contemporary political performance and artistic activism worldwide. (Added: 31-Mar-2003 Hits: 855 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- Guerrilla Girls - The Guerrilla Girls are a collective of anonymous females who take the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms and appear in public wearing gorilla masks, to focus on the issues rather than personalities. Using humor to convey information, provoke discussion, and show that feminists can be funny, since 1985 they have produced over 100 posters, books, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the art world, film and the culture at large. (Added: 17-Mar-2003 Hits: 1026 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- HOWL - Annual festival of East Village arts in New York City organized by the Federation of East Village Artists, founded in 2002. Honoring the historic role of the East Village as the cradle of counterculture. (Added: 21-Aug-2003 Hits: 716 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Icarus Project (Malta) - The Icarus Project aims at constructing an 'evolving performance structure' by means of a series of performative events. The website documents the first phase of the Project, entitled ‘The Roots of Performing’. It documents the Selection and Formation Processes as well as the journey that led to the presentation of ICARUS 4. The website will document future phases of the project, led by Frank Camilleri, as they unfold. (Added: 31-Jan-2004 Hits: 803 Rating: 9.45 Votes: 11) Rate It
- In-Yer-Face Theatre - The kind of theatre which grabs the audience by the scruff of the neck and shakes it until it gets the message. In-yer-face theatre shocks audiences by the extremism of its language and images; unsettles them by its emotional frankness and disturbs them by its acute questioning of moral norms. Although the upsurge of in-yer-face theatre in Britain had many antecedents, especially in the alternative theatre of the 1960s, it only took off as a new and shocking sensibility in the 1990s. (Added: 3-Mar-2005 Hits: 647 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Inner World Theatre - Through theatre research based on the redefinition of use and understanding the function of the actor's body in theatre Sašo & Mojtina Jurcer developed Inner World Theatre. It is founded on disintegration of classical coordinates of space and time and acting that is not articulated as spontaneous action related to the exterior world, but as revealing actions and impulses arising from human inner world. The body is liberated from the physical confines of space, while subject only to the movement of time. The process of direction takes the actor's body to sculpt moving forms and transforms it into a plastic sign of inner mental states. (Added: 18-Feb-2006 Hits: 562 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- International Association of Performance Art Organizers - IAPAO is a network that presents and supports performance art activities and research. Established in 2003 to promote and assist in the realization of events and activities, by continuing to increase the propagation of performance art history through the activities of today’s artists and organizers. Offers access to related sources, resources and research centers. (Added: 31-Jul-2003 Hits: 748 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- International Brecht Society - The IBS was founded in 1970 on the model of Bertolt Brecht's own unrealized plans for a "Diderot Society". A non-profit, educational organization with a world-wide membership, the Society promotes the performance and understanding of Brecht's texts and addresses issues of politics and culture in contemporary life. The website is is maintained as a service to scholars, critics, students, and theater people round the world who are interested in the works and thought of Brecht. (Added: 6-Jul-2003 Hits: 774 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Karl's Imposter - Alan Francois' ensemble is based in London with roots within the Westminster Literature & Culture Society. They strive to break the boundaries that have trapped performance on the stage and trapped the audience in their seats, suspending belief and thought. Working mainly in improvisation and interaction, they look to create works that inspire, that challenge preconceptions, that create discussion; yet all the while entertain. (Added: 14-Jun-2006 Hits: 524 Rating: 9.00 Votes: 2) Rate It
- Keep Left Theatre - Parodies, skits, union rallies and demonstrations are all in a day's work for Keep Left Theatre. The company specialises in Rapid Response in the streets of Melbourne, Australia. (Added: 7-Jul-2004 Hits: 687 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Ko Festival of Performance - Founded by a core group of artists in 1991, Ko Theatre Works is dedicated to fostering innovative artistic collaborations. Ko offers training, a place, and a festival where this work is presented, and a series of discussions and forums where issues raised in the work can be discussed. The festival fosters the collaborations and experiments in form providing unusual and exciting entertainment for the community in the Pioneer Valley. (Added: 8-May-2006 Hits: 731 Rating: 7.00 Votes: 3) Rate It
- Komedy Kollective Theatre - This company based in Bradford, England, strives to liberate theatre from the cliquish, inward-looking cesspit of boredom and despair, that is 'commercial programming.' Formed to breathe new life back into a dying artform, this West Yorkshire troupe is picking the pimples of the conservatively-minded world of theatrical drama, releasing slimy satire-enriched globules of gross-out puss in the form of daring live semi-musical cabaret. (Added: 29-Dec-2006 Hits: 487 Rating: 9.14 Votes: 7) Rate It
- Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination - The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (lab of ii) is a network of socially engaged artists and activists whose work falls in between resistance and creativity, culture and politics, art and life, Launched in 2004, the group believes that playful forms of cultural intervention in everyday life and the development of convivial spaces that enable participants to cultivate full confidence in their own creative capacity are fundamental tools for social change. (Added: 24-Oct-2006 Hits: 423 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Life Lecture - An online resource which structures and directs an audience to deliver a lecture to themselves about themselves. It aims to create a collective autobiography of the audience while simultaneously challenging our understanding of what autobiography is. Created by Joshua Sofaer. (Added: 23-Dec-2011 Hits: 8 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Magic for Socialism - Ian Saville has performed socialist magic on picket lines, at benefits, and at many labour movement events. He has also performed in comedy clubs, theatres, arts centres, universities - even the Albert Hall in London. His first full-length socialist magic show, Brecht on Magic Brecht, has him attempting to making International Capitalism and exploitation disappear. The full text is available on this website. (Added: 23-Apr-2007 Hits: 459 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Margaretta D'Arcy - Irish guerilla theatre activist, known for activities ranging from London's Royal Court Theatre and the associated political activism of the 1950s to professional isolation due to the war in the North of Ireland and the censorship and disinformation it brought with it. (Added: 4-Nov-2005 Hits: 586 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Mettawee River Theater Company - Founded in 1975, to create original theater productions incorporating masks, giant figures, puppets and other visual elements with live music, movement and text, drawing on myths, legends and folklore of the world's many cultures. The company brings theater to people who may have little or no access to live professional theater; presenting outdoor performances in rural communities of upstate New York and New England, under the artistic direction of Ralph Lee. (Added: 14-Jul-2003 Hits: 808 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Miki Malör - Performance. Radical Theater - Documentation of Works 1982-recent. (Added: 27-Jan-2006 Hits: 522 Rating: 9.33 Votes: 3) Rate It
- Minnesota Fringe Festival - An annual ten-day festival of live stage performance, including theatre, dance and performance art, puppet, since 1994. Give or take, it happens during the first two weekends (and the sandwiched weekdays) of August each year. Minnesota's, by the way, is the largest Fringe in the United States. (Added: 30-Jul-2003 Hits: 762 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- New York International Fringe Festival - Established in 1996, FringeNYC uses a juried application process to insure the festival is a cross-section of the best emerging performance from around the world. The application process is highly competitive. An important part of FringeNYC's mission is to create a community that provides an opportunity for the untried and the untested, as well as a gathering place for lively discussion and interaction among artists and audience. (Added: 23-Jul-2003 Hits: 735 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- North American Cultural Laboratory (NaCl) - Founded in 1997 by Brad Krumholz and Tannis Kowalchuk, to create original new theatre that advances the craft and creative methodologies of the theatre artist while contributing to the development of contemporary experimental theatre in North America. The company operates out of its offices in Sullivan County and Brooklyn, NY. (Added: 31-Oct-2003 Hits: 721 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Northern Arts Tactical Offensive - nATo is a banner organisation, bringing together artists working on a broad spectrum of cultural, social and political issues. The group is dedicated to the production of spontaneous, independent and conscious public art. (Added: 24-Apr-2003 Hits: 833 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Odin Teatret - Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium / Odin Teatret was founded in Oslo in 1964 and has been based in Holstebro since 1966. Eugenio Barba has been Odin Teatret’s director since its founding. The company receives an annual grant from the Ministry of Culture for the purpose of further education and theatre research. Since 1980 it has also received an annual municipal grant as a regional theatre in Holstebro. (Added: 6-Nov-2005 Hits: 769 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 2) Rate It
- Optative Theatrical Laboratories - Founded by Donovan King, the OTL is a politically motivated theatre company that seeks to blur the line between performer and spectator, theatre and reality. The OTL is intent on tearing down the hierarchical and patriarchal structures that marginalize yet define conventional theatre today. (Added: 4-Jan-2004 Hits: 612 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 5) Rate It
- Organic Theatre - Independent company and a laboratory of theatre research based in Exeter (UK), which tours and seeks its collaborators internationally. Founded by Bianca Mastrominico and John Dean in 2001, the company produces and tour original devised performances, which combine a physical approach with new writing, alongside training projects and educational activities in the UK and abroad. (Added: 8-Oct-2005 Hits: 521 Rating: 10.00 Votes: 1) Rate It
- Paul Zaloom - An award-winning solo political satirist, puppeteer (Bread and Puppet Theater alumnus), and performance artist, who lives and works in Los Angeles. Zaloom also tours Beakman Live!, featuring large scale science demonstrations with loads of audience participation and lots of the trademark goofy Beakman humor. (Added: 13-Nov-2003 Hits: 706 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal - German choreographer Pina Bausch is both controversial and influential. Physically, Bausch's dances are highly visual and textural, as much as kinetic spectacles, and this adds to their visceral impact. This link is for the official website of her world renowned Dance Theatre in Wuppertal, Germany. (Added: 15-Jul-2003 Hits: 787 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Pioneers Go East - A cultural project that explores the Italian immigrants' experience in America, specifically focusing on the tension between the old and new worlds and the struggles, common to many migrating ethnic groups, that are repeated over time in culture, religion and politics. (Added: 24-Aug-2007 Hits: 364 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- platformnortheast - An informal association of artists, individuals and organisations supportive of the development, presentation and critical evaluation of live art practice in the North East of England. Platform events have taken place in the Waygood Gallery and the Ouseburn Valley, drawing in the art-going public and also opening up live art to a new audience. (Added: 29-Dec-2004 Hits: 654 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
- Punany Poets - The Punany Poets use intimate and erotic poetry-based theater to bring couples closer together and to create community dialogue about sex, relationships, AIDS & HIV especially as they affect Black, African Americans and heterosexual women. (Added: 10-Aug-2005 Hits: 622 Rating: 0 Votes: 0) Rate It
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Last updated on: 13-Feb-2012 - 13:07:53