Independent Theatre Research Articles

Through the glass wall: architectural insights into the feminist Turkish play On İkinci Ev

ABSTRACT Theatre’s dynamic interaction with space is a recognised and evolving topic among artists and researchers, and independent theatres are the institutions most engaged with this topic in Turkey. This article focuses on a site-based and touring independent play, On İkinci Ev (The Twelfth House), which is performed behind glass walls in city locations and presents a one-person, autobiographical narrative of a woman trying to make herself heard. This article scrutinizes the play’s use of space from an architectural perspective to ascertain how the performance negotiates individual politics with built space and what it highlights about independent Turkish theatre. It surveys existing literature on Turkish independent theatres and their relation to space, conducts an architectural analysis of five performance spaces used for On İkinci Ev productions, and analyses how architectural and urban spaces contribute to the play’s feminist agenda. The article argues that On İkinci Ev critiques patriarchal views on women and space, and concludes that its depiction of women’s efforts to exercise their rights in public converges with experimental approaches to space found within independent Turkish theatre. As such, both the play and independent Turkish theatre more broadly resist the marginalisation and invisibility of women and theatre in public spaces.

استخدام العناصر الواقعية في هنرك ابسن بيت الدمى

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is considered Norway's most distinguished playwrights, besides being the father of modern drama. He started handling realistic themes around the last quarter of the nineteenth century after he had given up writing romantic plays. He turned to the problem play with The Pillars of Society (1877) and kept tackling realistic subject-matters especially in A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), and The Wild Duck (1884). In these particular plays, he relentlessly attacked the false values of society which made many people suffer. He used the prose dialogue in his realistic plays to replace the unrealistic elements of the previous romantic plays. In the realistic plays, Ibsen also subordinated action to thought since ideas are more important than action in this kind of drama. Thus, the action is more psychological than physical in A Doll's House, which is the central notion in this article. At the same time Ibsen's realistic plays came as a surprise to the people who were influenced by the existing conventions. It is no wonder that such plays were not appreciated by the censors and banned in some European countries, especially at the first time of their appearance. Ibsen surprised Europe when he volunteered to speak of subjects no other playwright dared to speak so openly and fearlessly. Thus Ibsen's Ghosts could not be staged in England until 1891, ten years after its introduction in Norway. It was J. T. Grein who helped to stage the English version of Ghosts in The Independent Theatre, a private theatre, in order to escape the censorship imposed on the public theatres. The play was already translated into English by William Archer. The subject-matter of Ghosts revolves on a hereditary issue when a son inherits a venereal disease from his father, and also on a conventional situation when a wife is forced to remain with an immoral husband whom she hates.

Feministyczne i kolektywne artywizmy

The author describes the activities of female artists who co-found independent theater collectives that practice feminist artivism and sisterhood in various ways. Their actions are an active expression of opposition to violations of women’s rights, racism, classism, gender discrimination and top-down identity politics. In each of the cases described, the motivation for artivism is not only violence, but more importantly, the question: what ideas and values do female artists-activists advocate for? The methodological framework for the article is feminist theory (primarily the thought of Sara Ahmed), focusing on the everyday practice of feminism, which includes an awareness of intersectionality, an acknowledgment of one’s own privileges, and a desire to create more ethical and just realities. Key-words: feminism, artivism, feminist movement, Afghan women, Ukrainian women, Roma women

Ideology and Theatre Translation in Contemporary Turkish Theatre

This paper aims to explore the relationship between drama translation and ideology in contemporary Turkish theatre. After delineating the distinction between state/city theatres and independent (private/alternative) theatres, it will then focus on the 2000s with a special emphasis on the translation activities of independent (private/alternative) theatres. In particular, it shall draw attention to how actor/director translators working with or for these theatres have become significant cultural agents and have challenged the status quo by either choosing to translate plays with provocative content or by retranslating plays that were forced to undergo (self-)censorship. The paper will also challenge the general impression in the Turkish context that the reason for retranslating classical plays into Turkish is merely a need to follow and reflect contemporary changes in the language.

Publiczność międzynarodowa w poznańskich teatrach pozainstytucjonalnych. Opis i analiza działalności artystycznej i społecznej adresowanej do migrantów i uchodźców

The article’s aim is to describe and critically assess the cultural projects addressed to the international audience, which were prepared by the independent theatres in Poznań. The problem discussed in the text is analysed in the light of the current research from the fields of social studies, performance studies, culture studies or audience development studies. The article was divided into two parts. In the first part – the theoretical one – the most important notions, issues and definitions pertaining to the topic of this article were discussed. In the second one, listed, described and analysed were the specific and practical actions addressed towards the migrants and refugees, which were taken by the independent scene in Poznań. The statements of the leaders of Poznań’s independent theatre companies were included as well.

Textuelle Infrastrukturen des Theaters. Dramaturgie als Vermittlung

Textuelle Infrastrukturen des Theaters<b>. Dramaturgie als Vermittlung</b>

Actors as Co-Creators in Contemporary Latvian Theatre

In Latvian theatre, the last decade has been a time of significant changes regarding the working methods of independent theatre movements. Two of the oldest independent theatres in Riga – Dirty Deal Teatro and Ģertrūde Street Theatre – have become a centre for various theatre productions, therefore moving towards the model of state repertoire theatres. Meanwhile, in recent years, several new theatre companies and creative groups have appeared in the field. Theatre troupe KVADRIFRONS, formed by four young actors having just graduated from the Latvian Academy of Culture, as well as the theatre company esARTe, led by director and teacher Elmārs Seņkovs and the ‘scandalous’ young actors trained in the so-called puppet theatre course at the Latvian Academy of Culture, – these are just a few examples of the new creative formations in Latvian theatre. While in repertoire theatre the creative process mostly lies on the shoulders of the stage director, the aforementioned theatre companies highlight the importance of the actor as co-creator – both in the artistic (devised theatre methods), and the administrative process (actors as managers, etc.). Has the profession of actor changed from performer to administrator? How does the administrative status of the newly founded theatre companies influence the work of freelance actors? How has the status of the actor changed in today’s society? The research tackles the topic of actor as co-creators focusing on the examples and experiences of new independent Latvian theatre companies and including significant social, as well as aesthetical aspects.

Daizō Sakurai's Trans-Asian Tent Theater, Picun, and the Reenchantment of Urban Space

Abstract This article discusses the 2010 Picun performance of Crow2Topia, the first play by the Beijing division of Daizō Sakurai's tent theater. Sakurai had previously participated in grassroots theater activities in Japan and Asia: in 2007 members of the mainland independent theater scene introduced him to the labor NGO and community cultural center Migrant Workers Home in the urban village Picun in Beijing. Sakurai's collaborators suggested that the suburban village-in-the-city, populated by rural migrant workers, would be a performance venue that fit the Japanese director's vision of theater as being located on the margins of society. The article delineates the trajectory of Sakurai's tent theater, analyzing the play Crow2Topia and pointing to intertextual references to premodern theater traditions and modern texts. Drawing on similarities between the play, which portrays a contemporary Chinese city from the perspective of the inhabitants of a garbage dump, and the precarious position of the actual tenants of Picun, it argues that the tent theater and the Migrant Workers Home can both be described as unstable “shared spaces” with permeable borders. In these spaces, social roles and personal identities are in constant flux. The closing part of the article expands the notion of “shared space,” first introduced by Dai Jinhua in her discussion of the emerging popular culture in mainland China in the 1990s, beyond the borders of the local cultural scene and embeds it into transregional networks of grassroots cultural activism.

Women's Justice: Alan's Wife and the Defense of Silence

Abstract: Elizabeth Robins and Florence Bell's Alan's Wife (1893) shocked its first audiences with the brutality of the piece, but the play holds greater historical interest for its fusion of nineteenth-century theatrical approaches. The Naturalism associated with the independent theater movement is apparent in the debates about eugenics, capital punishment, and women's roles embedded in the piece, but Robins and Bell also borrow from commercial melodrama the device of the silent heroic character. In the final scene, Jean Creyke does not speak until her closing monologue, responding instead solely through eloquent gesture. The choice of gestural rather than spoken language draws on the moral certainty of melodrama to impart a political argument, anticipating the performance-based methods of the campaign for women's suffrage.

A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran by Nasser Rahmaninejad

Reviewed by: A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran by Nasser Rahmaninejad Suzi Elnaggar A MAN OF THE THEATER: SURVIVAL AS AN ARTIST IN IRAN. By Nasser Rahmaninejad. New York: New York University Press, 2020. 266 pp. Paperback, $21.95. Nasser Rahmaninejad is an Iranian artist who began working in theatre in 1959. During the Shah’s regime, he formed an independent theatre group called Mehr, which later became known as the Iran Theatre Association. His work in Iran spanned a period of cultural and political shifts, as well as strict censorship. After surviving both revolution and imprisonment, Rahmaninejad left Iran. He continues his work in theatre, now outside Iran, by writing and translating essays and articles, speaking and lecturing at academic institution and artistic spaces, and continuing to write plays, including My Heart, My Homeland (1995), One Page of Exile (1996), and Between the Grave and the Moon (2016). He now lives in the Bay Area in California. Rahmaninejad’s memoir, A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran, is the story of a man, a country, and the love for theatre that keeps bringing them into conflict. In his opening chapter, Water (Aab), he relates the relationship of water to Iranians of his generation, opening with, “We did not have tap water” (p. 1). This opening perfectly encapsulates the flowing fluidity of the narrative that Rahmaninejad weaves through his memoir. Some tales, like the childhood of traditional Iranian theatre with neighborhood friends, are gentle eddies while others, like his early childhood memory of the death of his sister, Manijeh, are deep pools of memory in which we can barely see past the surface. Theatre flows throughout, first a small trickle, then a rushing river that significantly alters the course of his life as a young artist in pre-Revolution Iran. Chapter One introduces the quality of the memoir, meditative and free flowing, focused on small details of life while building a narrative. In the next three chapters, Rahmaninejad recounts his childhood and years as a young man, before he became a well-known theatre practitioner in Iran. In Chapter Two, he recounts his very first [End Page 220] performance at two years old. However, the darker shades of memory creep in, as he reflects on the opium dens and the downtrodden women (saghi) that worked there. It was a family connection that started his love for theatre; his father’s second cousin, an actor and singer named Abdolvahab Shahidi provided free admission for his family to many plays, and this became a place of refuge for Rahmaninejad. In Chapters Three and Four, he recounts his efforts to establish himself as a professional theatre maker after high school but being unable to do so with any real stability—or without working for the Shah’s government. Here, Rahmaninejad begins to weave in his burgeoning political consciousness, and the events in both the country and his life that shaped his artistic journey. In Chapter Five, Interlude, Rahmaninejad recounts a harrowing and some comical tale of his first serious encounter with SAVAK, the Iranian Secret Police. After intending to cross the border into Pakistan with several friends, he was apprehended. Their juvenile attempts to get themselves out of a situation way beyond their depth end with Rahmaninejad attempting to get back to Tehran, ragged and hungry, without money for the fare home. This interlude is one of the longer complete narratives in the book, and perfectly encompasses the feeling that Rahmaninejad would do anything to practice theatre—even things that he recounts later as unwise or risky decisions. In Chapters Six through Eight, Rahmaninejad reminisces on the events that led him and other artistic friends to establish the Mehr Theatre Group and the Iranian Theatre Association. They began with adapting Miller’s Incident at Vichy, an endeavor for which they garnered American backing and support. As the group and Rahmaninejad grew more confident and established, they began to perform both original works and adaptations. As the theatre he put on grew bolder, SAVAK took an increased interest in Rahmaninejad and his compatriots. This interest eventually led to his arrest in 1971 and his detention...

Ideas in the Space Between: Stockpiling and Processes for Managing Ideas in Developing a Creative Portfolio

Research on the creative process has focused on how an idea develops within a single focal creative project. But creators often work to develop creative portfolios featuring multiple projects that overlap and intertwine over time. Through an inductive qualitative study of creative workers in independent theater and in architecture, we explore how creators manage ideas across multiple projects when developing creative portfolios. Our emergent model shows how creators shift ideas across projects by stockpiling ideas from one creative project, transforming them into resources, and mobilizing them in their portfolios. Our analysis reveals that these practices unfold in distinct ways across two different processes for managing ideas: managing ideas strategically to build portfolios by realizing stockpiled ideas in new creative products across different opportunities, and managing ideas symbolically to balance creative outputs with new meanings constructed from unrealized ideas that represent the creator’s identity and journey. Our findings reveal the critical role of stockpiling in creative work, showing how different ways of stockpiling transform ideas into resources for developing a portfolio. Our portfolio perspective on the creative process informs our understanding of creative portfolios as they develop and evolve as well as the dynamics of creative processes as they unfold across different projects.

Them and Us – Pintér Béla’s Blood-Red, Off-White, Dark Green and András Urbán’s Sacra Hungarica in Context

The paper wishes to document a recent trend visible in the Hungarian independent theatre scene – a turn towards social, political issues, as well as a growing sensitivity towards the visible tensions in Hungarian political discourse. It does so through the analysis and the contextualization of two recent Hungarian independent theatrical productions. Studio K’s 2019 Sacra Hungarica is an in-your-face attempt to portray the current distortion of the language and the abuse language is used for, while Béla Pintér’s Blood Red, Off-White, Dark Green, a clever Oedipus Rex paraphrase that depicts marginalization, racism, and nationalism in a pointedly non-pc allegory. The essay introduces the status of independent theatre vis-à-vis politics after 1989 and will delineate the changes the conservative governments brought into the alternative scene. Then, through an in-depth analysis of the above-mentioned two productions, it discusses the various means of theatricality they use to comment on contemporary Hungary.

ШЛЯХИ РОЗВИТКУ ТЕАТРАЛЬНОЇ КУЛЬТУРИ МАРІУПОЛЯ НА ПІДКОНТРОЛЬНІЙ ТЕРИТОРІЇ УКРАЇНИ

The article highlights the main features of the development of theater art in Mariupol on the territory controlled by Ukraine. The activities of the Independent Theater of the author's play «Conception», its repertoire and the main challenges faced by the Mariupol collective after the full-scale invasion of Russia are outlined. It was found that this theater became the only group that managed to resume its work almost in full in Ukraine. It is emphasized that it was the theater of the author's play Conception that was able to unite the people of Mariupol and revive theater culture in the territory controlled by Ukraine. It is noted that when the collective started its work in Kyiv, it was joined by actors from other theaters of Mariupol and Ukraine in general. In the performances «The face of the color of war», «Staying together», «Immigrant life» with the help of artistic images, the actors of the Mariupol independent theater of the author’s play Conception, who were in the occupied city until April, told the audience both their stories and the stories of people , who managed to leave the territories captured by Russian troops to the territory controlled by Ukraine. It has been established that the actor of the Theater of author's play "Conception" is the director of the children's theater «Tezy», thanks to which small and young Mariupol residents create stage images, work with literary works, train body plasticity and pronunciation, experiment and generate creative ideas as part of classes. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time in cultural studies, the peculiarities of the development of the theater art of the Northern Azov region in the conditions of martial law have been highlighted. Key words: theater, Mariupol, theater culture, war, Ukraine, occupation.

Theatre production and cultural policy during the pandemic: Leadership and memory narratives

The pandemic showed that theatres are able to adapt, re-position and re-focus their work, through digital means and by using diverse social media tools, in order to stay present and active during periods in which their models of traditional production and existence are limited. The research explores the rationale behind so called “pandemic production,” digital narratives and main approaches of managers and leaders in the public theatres during the pandemic phase, while noting the lack of cultural policy leadership. The roles of theatre managers was of the most importance and the pace of adaptation depended on their skills and talent. For all stakeholders, the new reality caused by the pandemic opened the horizons of ethics and aesthetics of solidarity, empathy, care, and critical reflections (within theatres and among independent theatre practitioners), while cultural policymakers chose to act as bureaucrats, missing the opportunity to step in with more vision and leadership, which lad to the downgrading of their role to pure administration.

Organization of Theatrical Activity Within the Non-Governmental Sector of Culture

Introduction. The importance of studying independent theatre initiatives in the Ukrainian context is not only theoretical but also practical because it is not just a comparison of different models but also the formulation of recommendations for theatre reform in Ukraine. The emergence of independent theater organizations gave rise to independent artistic practice, which dramatically increased competition among theaters in the struggle for the audience. As a result, the ability to use management and marketing technologies as a tool for market promotion began to play a leading role for such institutions. Purpose and methods. The purpose of the article is to develop theoretical foundations and practical recommendations for improving the organization of theatrical activities within the non-governmental sector of culture. The work was based on dialectical, empirical, and systematic approaches, which allowed us to summarize the theoretical and practical achievements accumulated by the community in the context of organizing the activities of modern theaters. Results. The essence, role, and significance of the activities of independent theater organizations are revealed. The problems of the existence of independent theaters are determined. Methods for improving the work of theatrical organizations in the independent sector of culture and theatrical reform have been formulated. Peculiarities of management of the subjects of the independent sector of culture have been revealed. Conclusions. The scientific novelty of the obtained results lies in the deepening of the theoretical foundations of the organization of independent theaters based on generalization of the best world experience in this culture segment. The significance of the study is manifested in the expansion of knowledge in the field of organization of independent theaters and the possibility of their use in the process of reforming the theatrical sphere of Ukraine.

LATVIAN THEATRE IN TRANSITION . THE ROOTS IN THE 1990s

This paper focuses on the emergence and evolution of the so-called independent theatre scene in Latvia in the radically changing socio-political and institutional context of the 1990s. The analysis concerns the question why in Latvia the independent theatres did not become a significant alternative from the inherited institutional repertory theatre system until the second decade of the new century. Examples of the independent theatres Kabata, Skatuve and Mūris help to illustrate the general tendencies showing that a lack of a strong artistic vision and managerial strategy in difficult economic circumstances lead to the underdevelopment of a diversity of production models in performing arts in Latvia. In addition, after a short loss of direction, institutional theatres in the mid-90s started to attract nearly all artistically interesting new initiatives, especially if it already had proved itself within the independent scene. The New Riga Theatre and The Atelier of Unbearable Theatre characterize these processes, moreover indicating that the avant-garde directors of the time – Alvis Hermanis, Dž. Dž. Džilindžers, Viesturs Kairišs, Gatis Šmits and Regnārs Vaivars – were interested in a radical break with the past in terms of aesthetics of theatre, but they were not interested in politics. The comparison with the independent theatre scene in Estonia and Lithuania shows that the similar initial circumstances may lead to different outcomes.

‘Challenging Stereotypes’ as a Core Competence in Creative Entrepreneurship: Insights from ArtiShock Theatre, Kazakhstan

Although scholarly interest in creative entrepreneurship (also known as cultural industry) is gaining traction, the development of organizational competences beyond the creative offerings have remained underexplored. Such omission is surprising as an organization in creative industry cannot be solely dependent on creative offerings. It needs to focus on other aspects of business. To explore the possible link between product creativity and business model, we conduct a study on ArtiShock Theatre—Kazakhstan’s first independent theatre. Our study suggests that a creative enterprise can address both competition and environmental shocks through the process consisting of exploratory re-forming, experimental organizing leading to the development of ‘challenging stereotypes’ as a core competence. Our study shows that such core competence might be evolved into a dynamic capability to handle environmental changes.

Micro-Festivals on the Fringe: The OFF d’Avignon in 2020

The management of the coronavirus crisis of 2020 required immediate and top-down decisions, which contradicts the bottom-up philosophy of the non-curated Festival OFF d’Avignon. As a consequence, the loose organizational structure risked breaking apart and every theatre director acted autonomously by either cancelling the scheduled programme, creating online alternatives, or organising independent micro-festivals. The events of 2020 demonstrate that the non-curated festival is composed of multiple independent theatres following their own artistic orientation and business model. The OFF d’Avignon is, in fact, a festival of festivals.

Survival and Renewal: Independent Theatres in Hungary Before and After the Fall of Communism

Survival and Renewal: Independent Theatres in Hungary Before and After the Fall of Communism

1990s Beyond Institutions: Zagreb Independent Theatre Scene

1990s Beyond Institutions: Zagreb Independent Theatre Scene