Physical theatre is a genre of performance that relies on movement more heavily than text. You can watch a performance of Oranges and Stones, a play without words from Ashtar Theatre, or read about the 2015 controversy over Synetic Theater’s physical theatre productions of Shakespeare’s work.
Jeffrey Mosser connects with Willa Jo Zollar, who is founder, chief visioning partner, and MacArthur Genius at Urban Bush Women. Together they talk about touring, the festival circuit, and strategy necessary to sustain a company for thirty years.
Theatre artist and educator Katie Butler discusses the need to recalibrate movement practice toward accessibility and body autonomy, and shares her own experience navigating changes in her body’s abilities.
Robert Magasa is an experienced dancer, choreographer, and actor who trained in Zimbabwe and now runs UjeNi Dance Ensemble Theatre in Malawi. In this interview, Magasa discusses his career, the economics of producing theatre in Malawi, and his current work to bring a combination of traditional and Afro contemporary dance to schoolchildren in Malawi.
In this episode, hosts Zsófi and Bíborka take apart autobiographical theatre with stage director Panni Néder, actress Judit Tarr, actor and director László Göndör, and director and dramaturg Kristóf Kelemen. Together they delve into their approach to autobiographical material, playing themselves versus acting, their lives after creating a highly personal show, and the nuances of someone else playing them onstage.
In this week’s episode, hosts Bíborka and Zsófi focus on different abilities and handicapped people in the performing arts. Translating their guests’ responses into English, the co-hosts sit down with independent theatremaker, poet, and dramaturg Ádám Fekete; and the core members of the ArtMan Association, Dorka Farkas, Kata Kopeczny, and Ferenc Kálmán, who work with integrated dance and movement practices to produce amazing contemporary dance shows.
In this episode, co-hosts Zsófi and Bíborka talk about the practice and art of improvisation with three outstanding figures from the Hungarian contemporary dance and jazz scene: Zoltán Grecsó, a dancer, choreographer, and founder of Budapest’s improvised dance evening series Willany Leó; Viola Lévai, a dancer and teacher of contact improvisation; and Ernő Zoltán Rubik, a musician, composer, dancer, and an active member of the Hungarian free jazz and contact improvisation scene.
In the third episode of PUHA podcast, co-hosts Zsófi and Bíborka talk to the interdisciplinary collective Hollow, the experimental scenographer Eszter Kálmán, and dancer-choreographer Beatrix Simkó. Together, they discuss how their work features across different media and mixes visual and digital art with performativity. Get ready for a journey across household noise choreographies, moving bodies in Vienna’s Leopold Museum, underground queer communities in Tbilisi, and stories of friendship and pregnancy in performance art!
Moving Theatre Toward Collective Self-Defense: Virginia Grise’s Your Healing is Killing Me
26 May 2022
Educator and writer Marci McMahon reflects on her experience seeing Virginia Grise’s movement manifesto Your Healing is Killing Me at Cara Mía Theatre Co.
Unrehearsed Futures: MASTER-LESS livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Thursday 3 June 2021 at 4 a.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 9 a.m. BST (London, UTC +1) / 10 a.m. SAST (Cape Town, UTC +2) / 1:30 p.m. IST (Mumbai, UTC +5:30) / 6 p.m. AEST (Hobart, UTC +10).
Presenting Unrehearsed Futures: Serious Play livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Thursday 13 May 2021 at 4 a.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 9 a.m. BST (London, UTC +1) / 10 a.m. SAST (Cape Town, UTC +2) / 1:30 p.m. IST (Mumbai, UTC +5:30) / 6 p.m. AEST (Hobart, UTC +10).
Sayda Trujillo talks about white supremacy’s prevalence in clown pedagogy and shares how the invincible spirit of the clown has shaped her, “seeping through every tiny crack possible to make itself present to speak, to laugh, to sing, to bounce, to witness, and to encounter.”
A screening and discussion of a play without words that portrays the reality of persecution in Palestine
Monday 31 August 2020
International
Glod: Political Theatre as a Civil Right presented a screening and conversation on Ashtar Theatre’s Oranges and Stones livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Monday 31 August 2020 at 10 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 1 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 6 p.m. BST (London, UTC +1) / 8 p.m. EEST (Cluj, UTC +3).
Charlie Peters, who has spent the early days of the pandemic thinking about and experimenting with how physical comedy can (and can’t) live online, shares what he’s learned.
Underground Railroad Game and the Resurgence of the History Play
17 November 2016
Rosa Schneider reflects on history plays, history, and pedagogy in Undergound Railroad Game created by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott Sheppard with Lightning Rod Special playing at Ars Nova in New York City.
Double Edge Theatre’s Latin American Cycle Builds Bridges Across Massachusetts
20 October 2016
Josh Platt on Double Edge Theatre’s Latin American Spectacle in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Cada Luna Azul / Once a Blue Moon in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and the Springfield Spectacle, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Gale Theatre Company and The VORTEX in Austin, Texas presented Salomé, a new physical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s one act tragedy livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Friday 12 August at 9 p.m. EDT (New York) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 6 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles). Share your thoughts on Twitter and Instagram with #howlround.
Exemplary Youth Theater in Albany Park Theatre Project’s God’s Work
6 May 2014
Dani Snyder-Young writes about the Chicago-based Albany Park Theatre Project, a youth theatre ensemble. She reviews APTP's 2014 remounted production of God's Work, at the Goodman Theatre.
The Mystery of Forgiveness at the Modern Times Stage Company
1 April 2014
Matt McGeachy writes about Modern Times Stage Company's Forgiveness: A Theatrical Poem, an intense movement piece exploring the dialetic between forgiveness and forgetting.
Acting is a physical function. It starts with the body. The body is the instrument. A theater without actors is not a theater; yet theater without words exists the world over.
In Critical Stages in Malawian Contemporary Theatre, Fumbani Innot Phiri Jr. interviews established theatre artists from all backgrounds to explore the precarious journey of theatre in a modern world, define its problems, and find better solutions to sustain performing arts in a generation of motion pictures. Fumbani leads discussions with established performers, directors, and writers who are exploring ways to greet these challenges while their works inspires their communities.