“La Mama Experimental Theater Club”

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-54
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Theater

scholarly journals Fragments Over Experimental Film: Liminal Zones of Cinema, Art and Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miško Šuvaković
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Music ◽  
Experimental Film ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Experimental Art ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Singular Event ◽  
Unknown Control ◽  
Second World

In what follows, I will point to theorization of concept of the experimental film. My main thesis is that experimental art is based on the project, research practice, innovation and open transgressive or subversive artworks. Art focused on subversion of institutional power features as a singular event performed within a particular social relationship, as a critical actionist, engaged, or activist practice. Transgression – literally – refers to: infraction, violation of a law or an order, while in geological terms it implies penetration and expansion of the sea over the mainland. The notion of transgression relates to excess, overrunning or, more precisely, departing the familiar for the unknown, control for freedom. Experimental art was created in different disciplines such as experimental music, experimental film, experimental theater, etc. John Cage’s concept of ‘experimental music’ has been the starting point for new experimental art and artistic practices since 1950. Experimental film (experimental, new, avant-garde or neo-avant-garde cinema) has featured since the Second World War. The concept and term describe a range of filmmaking styles which are generally quite different from, and often opposed to, the practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking and entertainment-oriented cinematography. In the second and third part of the essay, I will present an analysis of the experimental films of the artists the OHO group and Neša Paripović. Article received: December 2, 2017; Article accepted: December 18, 2017; Published online: April 15, 2018; Original scholarly paper How to cite this article: Šuvaković, Miško. "Fragments Over Experimental Film: Liminal Zones of Cinema, Art and Theory." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies no 15 (2018): . doi: 10.25038/am.v0i15.225

scholarly journals Theater Without a Script—Improvisation and the Experimental Stage of the Early Mid-Twentieth Century in the United States

Text Matters ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 374-392
Author(s):  
Magdalena Szuster
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Actor Training ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
The Us ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Experimental Stage

It was in the mid-twentieth century that the independent theatrical form based entirely on improvisation, known now as improvisational/improvised theatre, impro or improv, came into existence and took shape. Viola Spolin, the intellectual and the logician behind the improvisational movement, first used her improvised games as a WPA worker running theater classes for underprivileged youth in Chicago in 1939. But it was not until 1955 that her son, Paul Sills, together with a college theater group, the Compass Players, used Spolin’s games on stage. In the 1970s Sills made the format famous with his other project, the Second City. Since the emergence of improv in the US coincides with the renaissance of improvisation in theater, in this paper, I will look back at what may have prepared and propelled the emergence of improvised theater in the United States. Hence, this article is an attempt to look at the use of improvisation in theater and performing arts in the United States in the second half of the 20th century in order to highlight the various roles and functions of improvisation in the experimental theater of the day by analyzing how some of the most influential experimental theaters used improvisation as a means of play development, a component of actor training and an important element of the rehearsal process.

Halprin, Anna (Schuman) (1920--)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Ross
Keyword(s):  
Dance Education ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Community Leader ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
Dance Theater ◽  
Healing Ritual ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Experimental Dance ◽  
The 1960S

A dancer, choreographer, community leader, and educator, Anna Halprin helped to pioneer what she called "experimental dance" in the 1960s. After training with the modern dance performer and choreographer Doris Humphrey, she turned to dance education, fusing these dual tracks of performance and pedagogy into a practice where dance changed the dancer. Her experimental dance theater events helped prefigure happenings, performance art, and experimental theater works. Located at the boundaries between art and life, healing, ritual, and performance, Halprin created participatory site-specific dances, art events situated in the midst of urban life. Breaking down the boundaries between spectator and performer, her dance events deliberately reconfigured socially marginalized individuals as the subject and medium of performance, including people with HIV/AIDS and the aged. Beginning in the early 1960s, Halprin started offering dance workshops on the "dance deck," the dramatic outdoor wooden dance studio designed in 1953 by Arch Lauterer, the theater designer, and Lawrence Halprin, Halprin’s husband and a renowned urban designer. Halprin’s students in these early years included several who would become founders of dance minimalism, including Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, and Meredith Monk—artists who were inspired by her precedent for framing pedestrian actions as dance, relinquishing control, and embracing difficult personal history as legitimate subject matter for dance.

Teatro da Experiência

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J. Townsend
Keyword(s):  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Getulio Vargas ◽  
A Site ◽  
Modern Artists ◽  
A Performance

Teatro da Experiência was a 275-seat theater housed in the Clube dos Artistas Modernos, a controversial club for ‘modern artists’ in São Paulo (Brazil) that served as a site of intense intellectual and political activity from November 1932 to December 1933. Directed by the architect and multimedia artist Flávio de Carvalho, it played an important (if often overlooked) role as one of only a handful of theater projects linked to the movement known as Brazilian modernismo. In November 1932, only days after opening its doors, the theater was forced to shut down when police interrupted a performance of Bailado do Deus Morto (Dance of the Dead God), a ritualistic performance piece written by Carvalho and enacted by an almost entirely black cast. The closure of Teatro da Experiência was a sign of the increasingly repressive atmosphere that had begun to develop under the soon-to-be dictator Getúlio Vargas, and it spelled the end of efforts to stage experimental theater in Brazil for a decade.

Asian American Experimental Theater and Solo Performance

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Bacalzo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Asian American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Racial Perceptions ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
A Minor

Beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the present day, a wide range of performers and playwrights have contributed to Asian American experimental theater and performance. These works tend toward plot structures that break away from realist narratives or otherwise experiment with form and content. This includes avant-garde innovations, community-based initiatives that draw on the personal experiences of workshop participants, politicized performance art pieces, spoken word solos, multimedia works, and more. Many of these artistic categories overlap, even as the works produced may look extremely different from one another. There is likewise great ethnic and experiential diversity among the performing artists: some were born in the United States while others are immigrants, permanent residents, or Asian nationals who have produced substantial amounts of works in the United States. Several of these artists raise issues of race as a principal element in the creation of their performances, while for others it is a minor consideration, or perhaps not a consideration at all. Nevertheless, since all these artists are of Asian descent, racial perceptions still inform the production, reception, and interpretation of their work.

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