Content in this section focuses on theatremakers having conversations and creating work across geographical and cultural borders. There are many examples of powerful work here, but for those interested in learning more, consider starting with “Ten Transformative Ideas for Community-Building and Cross-Cultural Exchange.”
The Latest
Essay
On a Theatrical Pilgrimage to See Carolina Bianchi and Cara de Cavalo's Chapter II: The Brotherhood
by Amanda L. Andrei
6 April 2026
Essay
Presence Before Performance at ODIN HOME
by Melvin Ningyao Yen
3 March 2026
Video
A Performance of The Pelicot Trial: Tribute to Gisèle Pelicot
Cori Thomas convenes playwrights based in the United States for a roundtable discussion about working internationally. They parse the differences in new play development and theatregoing cultures in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic.
Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson are joined by Fidaa Ataya, a Palestinian storyteller who talks with us about the tradition of the hakawati and how she and her work are looking at different forms of storytelling from ancient traditions to new ways of storytelling in Palestine.
Ifrah Mansour creates performance art that explores joy and healing while connecting communities. In this essay, she illuminates the connections between her work and her experiences as a Somali American, a refugee, and a Muslim woman.
An Ongoing Conversation Between Artists, Thinkers, and Activists
Wednesday 10 July 2024
London, UK
performingborders is excited to invite you to join artists Rosa-Johan Uddoh and Party Office for an open online conversation exploring their upcoming performingborders commissions: our annual performance to camera for 2024 and our guest-curated digital pamphlet, both to be published before 10 July.
Asif Majid introduces the Transatlantic Muslim Voices series with an essay that traces histories of oral performance and migration away from oppression that continue to inform experiences of Muslimness in today’s world and theatre landscape.
J Emilio Bencosme-Zayas shares the experience of participating in the Festival del Caribe in Santiago de Cuba as part of Open Channels/Canales Abiertos. In reflecting on the festival, he discusses what Open Channels has achieved so far, and imagines what else could happen in the future.
In the final installment of this two-part conversation, artists from the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and Al Límite Collective in New York City come together to discuss the performance of Youth Against Invasion in the Cultural Resistance March, the Freedom Theatre’s global impact, and hopes for the future of the Freedom Theatre.
Hosts Marina Johnson and Nabra Nelson talk about Egyptian playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim and his “unstageable” classic play People of the Cave. They provide historical context of the play, al-Hakim’s career, and the Christian and Islamic stories that served as al-Hakim’s inspiration.
In the first installment of this two-part conversation, artists from The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and Al Límite Collective in New York City come together to discuss the work of The Freedom Theatre and its school and the creation of Youth Against Invasion.
Audiences pack houses to see stories about forbidden love. Romeo and Juliet is a famous Western example of this phenomenon, but the trope goes back much further, to a poem that likely inspired even inadvertently Shakespeare's famous play. In this episode, we look at the timeless tale of Layla and Majnun made famous by Nizami Ganjavi as a poem and later adopted for the stage and the screen countless times.
Beto O’Byrne discusses the work of three theatre artists in New York whose acts of cultural resistance contribute to the movement for a free Palestine.
Displacement Plays from Uganda, Lebanon, West Africa, Haiti and Ukranian Playwrights Project
Monday 13 May 2024
New York City
Join us for an evening of plays by nine writers who personally experienced displacement, migration, and war. Alongside four thirty-minute pieces, we will hear shorter ten-minute works by five young Ukrainian writers.
Georgina Leanse H. Escobar writes and draws a reflection on the second day of the Latinx Theatre Commons Tenth Anniversary Convening, which brought Latinx theatremakers together through poetry, conversation, and hope founded in community.
Ashley Malafronte reflects on the 2024 Under the Radar Symposium, which convened global theatre artists, producers, and presenters in New York City for a day of keynotes and discussions that surfaced the issues plaguing the international performing arts sector, as well as the emergent paths that could strengthen it.
An open collaborative session between teams of artists in Kyiv, Ukraine, and New York City livestreamed for an international audience.
Monday 5 February 2024
New York City and Kyiv, Ukraine
Watch a live collaborative rehearsal between two teams of artists; one in NYC and the other in Kyiv, Ukraine. In this open lab session they experiment in real time with digital tools to expand what we imagine is possible on stage and online.
Amelia Parenteau sits down with Sarah Cameron Sunde, who has translated and directed six of Jon Fosse’s plays, to mark the occasion of Fosse being awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature. Their conversation pays tribute to Sarah and Jon’s longstanding creative relationship, examines the plays’ Norwegian context as it is translated internationally, and uplifts the need for American audiences to see more dramatic work in translation.
A two-day assembly featuring perspectives from artists rooted in their communities, and figures in cultural policy and practice, philanthropy, and social justice.
Thursday 16 November to Friday 17 November 2023
Chicago, Illinois and Kyiv, Ukraine
The 2023 ArtsLink Assembly is a meeting of potent ideas and individual actions, of insights and practices, of artists and institutions, of engaging speakers and active listeners – seeks to spark new ways to dismantle, remember, repair, and reinvent the historic frameworks, ideas, and power structures.
Kristin Idaszak reflects on experiencing Theatre Du Polet’s Be Water, My Friend at the Prague Quadrennial. This protest art about Hong Kong’s fight for democracy in 2019, performed in the Czech Republic, crosses cultures, political regimes, and time periods.
Applied theatre scholars and practitioners Jennifer Schaupp and Dr. Felicia Owusu-Ansah discuss the empowering potential of Theatre of the Oppressed, and how Felicia has been able to utilize it in Ghana and other places around the world.
A Presentation of Excerpts from Chinese Theatre Works (New York) and US Karagöz Theatre Company (Washington)
Monday 30 October 2023
New York City
An evening celebrating the work of New York based international puppet theatre company Chinese Theatre Works and Washington's US Karagöz Theatre Company. Ayhan Hulagu (KTC), Kuang-Yu Fong, Stephen Kaplin (CTW) presented excerpts from their repertoires and demonstrated the puppets. The panel was joined by Prof. Marvin Carlson, editor of one of the latest Segal Center Publications: Turkish Traditional Theatre: Karagöz Puppet Plays.
For this fourth Cultural Mobility Webinar, On the Move explored the positive and negative impacts of international cultural mobility on the mental health and well-being of artists and culture professionals. Many studies and cultural initiatives at local, national, or European levels have investigated the various contributions of arts and culture to the well-being and good health, including mental health, of the population.
As part of the Black and Indigenous Futures series, Amber Starks and Kyle Mays discuss the siloing of Afro-Indigenous identity, the opportunities and challenges of developing Black and Indigenous solidarity, and the potential to build a future more deeply rooted in kinship.
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay convenes a roundtable discussion among actors, directors, producers, and playwrights from the Laotian diaspora who work in theatre in the United States. As former refugees and/or the refugees, these theatremakers navigate their places as arrivers in the settler-colonial structure of the United States.
Maia Novi’s testimonial play Invasive Species tells the story of one Argentinean immigrant’s experience constructing her sense of self in the United States in the face of the limitations on her identity that she encounters in her new home. Sebastián Eddowes-Vargas, a Peruvian living in the United States, reviews the production with an eye toward the way that Invasive Species embraces complexity, humanity, power imbalances, and even humor.
A Meeting of the International Presenting Commons (IPC) at the Edinburgh International Festival
Wednesday 9 August 2023
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
On 9 August 2023, the International Presenting Commons (IPC) and the Edinburgh International Festival gathered an invited, international group of presenters, producers, artists, and agents for a candid exploration of the opportunities and barriers artists and programmers face as they move work across borders.
