m.guardian.co.uk I'm in a bar chatting with an arty young couple about underground theatre. "What's the point of that?" says the woman. "How would you get an audience if you didn't tell anyone it was on?"
She has a point: millions are currently being spent on schemes to encourage people into theatres. Not since the 17th century, when playwrights were regularly put in prison for displeasing politicians, or even the long period of censorship that lasted until 1968, has British theatre had any need to conceal itself. "We may moan about how hard it is to make theatre," says Jon Spooner of Unlimited Theatre, "but nobody has to be an artist in secret." There are still countries – China and Iran, for example – where artists are so heavily censored they must perform underground. It's not just the actors but also the audience who put themselves at risk when they go to see, say, the Belarus Free Theatre in Minsk. Natalia Koliada, the company's director, has been threatened with rape and murder; close friends have died in suspicious circumstances. Yet audiences turn up. Cuts, combined with rising numbers of empty property for pop-up venues, may lead to more underground performances in the UK, but these are seldom political statements. Canny companies such as Punchdrunk and Belt-Up have worked this angle, building a loyal audience through hard-to-access secret performances. But, like the illegal rave, most UK underground theatre isn't subversive or experimental: it's merely out to give people a good time, while bypassing licensing laws. If a theatre turns your work down, why not run performance evenings in your living room? People do it, not least because it can nurture an artistic community. And there are other ways to colonise space. Search the web and you will find unauthorised events springing up around festivals such as the One-on-One season at BAC in London, or Edinburgh's Forest Fringe. "Audiences are often turned on by the idea that what they're seeing isn't sanctioned by the authorities," says Greg McLaren, co-founder of Stoke Newington International Airport, an artist-led London collective in London that started out as an underground event but is now fully licensed. So where is the underground theatre to be found? On the streets themselves: in the flashmobs and demos that disrupt the spectacle of everyday life; and in community-inspired events that transform familiar landscapes. On a winter evening late last year, an odd gathering took place in Hoxton Square in London: there was a corps de ballet of skeletons in black tutus, a house on legs and walking mummies. Suddenly, out of the darkness, the Grim Reaper appeared. Somebody calls, "Bring out your dead." Passengers in buses cheer. StrangeWorks, a group of theatre-makers and artists, have been creating these Dance of the Dead marches with communities in London and the Midlands since 2007. There is something so transforming about this odd spectacle that it feels subversive. But then the best underground theatre is often rooted in the community, overground and fully visible. -- http://m.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jan/30/underground-arts-theatre-counterculture?cat=stage&type=article Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
