Experimental theatre may now be more about ‘going against the grain’ than daring staging, says Matt Trueman, but artists are still happily experimenting with a fusion of form, technique and tradition.
Ten or so years ago, experimental theatre was everywhere. Punchdrunk were the posterboys, pushing immersive theatre into new ground. You Me Bum Bum Train was finding its feet. One-on-one theatre was beginning to bloom and artists were playing around with iPods and radio headsets and total darkness. Game theatre was flickering into life. Pop-up culture meant new spaces and sites. The Shunt Vaults were a seeding ground for new forms. SPILL Festival had just started out. Battersea Arts Centre was "inventing the future of theatre."
Sometimes it feels like all that experimental energy has faded. Back then, funding was flush and there was this huge energy about theatre; a desire to twist it, spin it, bop it; to find new shapes and sizes, new sites for performance, new models of spectatorship and new methods of making... Keep reading on What'sOnStage
Ten or so years ago, experimental theatre was everywhere. Punchdrunk were the posterboys, pushing immersive theatre into new ground. You Me Bum Bum Train was finding its feet. One-on-one theatre was beginning to bloom and artists were playing around with iPods and radio headsets and total darkness. Game theatre was flickering into life. Pop-up culture meant new spaces and sites. The Shunt Vaults were a seeding ground for new forms. SPILL Festival had just started out. Battersea Arts Centre was "inventing the future of theatre."
Sometimes it feels like all that experimental energy has faded. Back then, funding was flush and there was this huge energy about theatre; a desire to twist it, spin it, bop it; to find new shapes and sizes, new sites for performance, new models of spectatorship and new methods of making... Keep reading on What'sOnStage