{"id":681,"date":"2021-12-18T10:26:54","date_gmt":"2021-12-18T10:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/?p=681"},"modified":"2021-12-28T17:10:53","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T17:10:53","slug":"new-normal-performance-bangkok-owns-the-virtual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/new-normal-performance-bangkok-owns-the-virtual\/","title":{"rendered":"New Normal Performance: Bangkok Owns the Virtual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Katrina Stuart Santiago<\/strong><a href=\"#end\" name=\"back\">*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-background wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"background-color:#e3c7ca\">The Bangkok International Performance Meeting (BIPAM) 2021, Bangkok Thailand, 1\u20135 September, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To say that Southeast Asia\u2019s theatre continues to reel from the COVID-19 pandemic would be an understatement. And it isn\u2019t just about the lockdowns, which inevitably mean the closure of our performance spaces. It is also about the perception that the arts are non-essential, where cultural spaces are the first to close and last to open; where cultural workers are lowest in the pecking order of priority beneficiaries of assistance\u2014if they are on the list at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is not to say that theatre has not continued. In the past 20 months of this pandemic, I have seen more performances from Asia than I ever have in the decade that I have worked as critic from Manila. Festivals have had no choice but to take on the virtual as viable space for theatre, creating with it an online audience that engages in the collective paradox of wanting theatre spaces back but also accepting that online is now the only space we have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a critic, this has been a difficult space to navigate, primarily because its context is a pandemic. A difficult time seems to demand that we bite our tongues as we watch theatre productions grapple with this shift to another medium. It means understanding that you will most probably see a lot of bad performances, if not get bored out of your wits by productions that only seek to use the virtual as a platform on to which their shows might be uploaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This crisis is no surprise. After all, if the medium is the message, what happens to that message when we lose the stage to the screen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Owning the Virtual<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Bangkok International Performance Meeting (BIPAM) 2021, as the name suggests, is not just about its showcase of performances. Just as important, it is about creating meeting points for different theatre practitioners across Asia so that they might network, engage in dialogue and collaborate on curated panels and projects. This set-up is not new: it borrows to some extent from the annual The Performance Arts Meeting (TPAM) in Yokohama, Japan (now called YPAM or the Yokohama Performance Arts Meeting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-3.jpg?resize=800%2C533&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-682\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-3.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-3.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-3.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption><em>An Imperial Sake Cup and I\u00a0<\/em>by Dr. Charnvit Kasetsiri, directed by Teerawat Mulvilai, is a lecture-performance that brings the audience through one man&#8217;s personal history as it traverses two countries, cradled by the socio-political and anchored on artifacts. Photo: Courtesy of BIPAM<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the programming of the showcase for BIPAM\u2019s 2021 festival deserves mention because it was dominated by shows that, for once, looked as if they comfortably lived in the virtual, and could not exist anywhere but online. Entitled <em>Ownership<\/em>, one of the things BIPAM truly owned is this virtual space, the one we have been limited to and have been invariably oppressed by for close to two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With a programming team that includes a diverse set of theatre practitioners and that includes a theatre critic\u2014a rare occurrence for any festival\u2014one gets the sense that this BIPAM deliberately took its time and thought things through, ultimately finding the balance between using the virtual as space and keeping the theatre as critical storytelling practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Lecture, Magnified<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>An Imperial Sake Cup and I<\/em> by Dr. Charnvit Kasetsiri, directed by Teerawat Mulvilai, is a lecture-performance, one where Dr. Kasetsiri does not only sit and tell his story but also performs bits and pieces of it, moving across the space that has been fashioned as an office without walls. Dr. Kasetsiri\u2019s movements are thoughtfully planned out, seemingly chosen to coincide with instances in his narrative where there is talk of movement and action. Layered with video, lighting and sound design elements, this would have been enough to sustain a spectator\u2019s interest in a narrative about Kasetsiri\u2019s personal history as academic, citizen and historian, whose deliberate displacement from Thailand and reconsideration of Japan as home is born of the interweaving socio-political histories of the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But this performance sought to do even more. Throughout the lecture, the camera would shift from a wide shot of the staged space to a top view of Dr. Kasetsiri\u2019s desk. As our gaze falls on that desk, it becomes a stage in itself\u2014its objects deriving meaning from the voice of the persona, telling a story that is deeply personal but bound to the historical. The shifts between the desk, the large video screen and the stage set provide the spectator with a sense of these shifts in experience, one that is specific to Dr. Kasetsiri yet speaks to our own experience of lived history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This camera work made the performance more engaging, demanding of the spectators not only to shift their gaze but also to tune in better, or differently, to what is being said at any given point in the lecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One takes cognizance of the fact that this might have only worked because the lecture of Dr. Kasetsiri was, to begin with, a carefully written one, which seemed to have a keen sense of how to keep an audience\u2019s attention. If this performance is any indication, then it is the deeply personal story\u2014one that is complex, difficult, and even convoluted\u2014interwoven with the socio-political that captures that audience. Live, and online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-2.jpg?resize=800%2C340&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-685\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-2.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-2.jpg?resize=300%2C128&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-2.jpg?resize=768%2C326&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption>Dujdao Vadhanapakorn&#8217;s <em>Borrow <\/em>is a video documentation of interviews with four performers, made to navigate questions of identity while limited to a defamiliarized space and a set of behaviors. Photo: Courtesy of BIPAM<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Staged Conversation<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dujdao Vadhanapakorn\u2019s <em>Borrow <\/em>happens in a defamiliarized space: the smallness of a studio, dominated by a mountain of salt, on top of which is one plastic chair. Solitary performers are made to take up space here as they receive the same questions from Vadhanapakorn. They are not only supposed to answer these questions but are also given a set of instructions for doing so: answer with a smile or answer with your eyes closed, answer with a lie or answer with a half-truth, answer screaming or perform your answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the surface, it seems as if the spectator is just watching a simple psychological test, bearing witness to the performers\u2019 answers to well-chosen questions, ones that speak to each performer\u2019s self-awareness and identity, answers that are inevitably affected by the demands of a space that is equally familiar and strange, as much an opening to play as it is a threat of entrapment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One is drawn to this conversation, because what Vadhanapakorn does is to build a narrative through her questions, one that would be told regardless, and maybe precisely because, of the diverse and divergent answers. It is a narrative of unfreedom, where family and gender, society and history are brought to bear on these four individuals. They might speak of different experiences, but they are all essentially tied to the same collective socio-political history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This collective history that Vadhanapakorn fashions is what makes <em>Borrow <\/em>important. Yes, it surfaces the instability of identities; but, more than that, it ties that instability to a specific context that is just as precarious, one that is still in the process of being told, one that is both real and imagined community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That this could only be done for the screen would be an understatement. Taken from video documentation of the individual performance-interviews, it is the skillful and careful video editing that brings it all together into a riveting show that builds upon intimate similarities, irreconcilable differences and collective struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-1b.jpg?resize=800%2C533&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-686\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-1b.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-1b.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-1b.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption>In <em>A Perfect Conversation: Oh! Ode x Blunt Knives on Google Doc Jam, <\/em>Sasapin Siriwanij and Eng Kai Er perform a conversation with their audience while watching videos of their own performances. Photo: Courtesy of BIPAM<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Post-performance Performance<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Off-hand, <em>A Perfect Conversation: Oh! Ode x Blunt Knives on Google Doc Jam <\/em>by Sasapin Siriwanij and Eng Kai Er is simply a documented conversation between two artists and an audience. The chosen platform? An empty Google Document page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But as with the rest of the projects in this year\u2019s BIPAM, at the heart of this is a wrought conversation that the performance makes us privy to. It engages with two complex works, Siriwanij\u2019s <em>Oh! Ode<\/em> (2017) and Eng\u2019s <em>Blunt Knife<\/em> (2019), and it allows for the audience to speak with the artists, posing questions and articulating observations, on the common page. The conversation could go anywhere, but what is interesting is how even when it does, what it creates is a sense of a collective of interlocutors\u2014artists and spectators together\u2014grappling equally with the text and all that is contingent to it. Here, the artists and spectators, the contextual and historical, the critical and meta-critical are given space to exist. But it does so within the frame of a blank page, a friendly and open conversation and the voices of multiple women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That page captures more than a conversation. It is a documentation of responses and ripostes that builds a community around the spectatorship of the two works. It is as deeply personal as the works are, and as complicated as the contexts that gave birth to these works. That this staging demanded of the spectator to watch performances through another screen flashed on one\u2019s own screen was, surprisingly, not a problem. This is a measure of how well-conceptualized it was: the theatre was happening on the Google Document. The two recorded performances were its primary subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes, the shows were important. But this performance of the conversation was the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Taking Back Our Stories<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The power of BIPAM 2021\u2019s showcase lies not just in how it owned the virtual space but also in how it did it. Where one has witnessed many productions complicating this exercise by employing technology to the point that the performance becomes secondary, here what we see is theatre going back to its roots: storytelling. Difficult conversations and complex narratives were brought to the online space with a keen sense of audience and a thoughtful use of technology, in projects that still believed in putting performance front and center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Probably the greatest measure of BIPAM\u2019s success for me is the fact that, in the course of watching these shows, not once did I feel any nostalgia for the physical theatre space at all. This speaks to the fact that the screen didn\u2019t hamper my appreciation of the performances, and the task of spectatorship didn\u2019t seem strange or wrong or different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when you stop wondering if what you\u2019re watching would be better seen live, then it means that you are finding logic, maybe even some comfort, in the screen as mediator and the virtual as space. It took us a while to get here, but BIPAM is showing us the way.<a name=\"end\">&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Katrina-Stuart-Santiago.jpg?resize=150%2C150&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-683\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a name=\"end\" href=\"#back\">*<\/a><strong>Katrina Stuart Santiago<\/strong> is an independent essayist, arts and cultural critic, book author and opinion writer from Manila, Philippines, with a decade of work in mainstream and fringe publications. Her role as critic fuels her activism, which cuts across issues of cultural labor, systemic dysfunctions and institutional crises. She is also a teacher, a small press publisher and editor of the review site gaslight.online. She has been writing at katrinasantiago.com since 2008 and is @radikalchick online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Copyright <strong>\u00a9<\/strong> 2021 Katrina Stuart Santiago<br><em>Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/88x31.png?w=800&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Creative Commons Attribution International License\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This work is licensed under the<br>Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/PER-Bipam-featured.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":246,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/endangered-theatre-a-philippine-notebook\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":0},"title":"Endangered Theatre: A Philippine Notebook","author":"Katrina Stuart Santiago","date":"December 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Katrina Stuart Santiago* Abstract This is a critical assessment of Philippine theatre in Manila based on ruptures in its status quo of silence over fundamental divides based on language and privilege, as well as important issues of neo-coloniality, inequality, and injustice. The essay argues that the surfacing of these crises\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;National Reports&quot;","block_context":{"text":"National Reports","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/national-reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image6b-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C531&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image6b-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C531&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image6b-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C531&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image6b-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C531&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":407,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/south-korean-audiences-and-their-interactive-performance-in-the-madang-then-and-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":1},"title":"South Korean Audiences and their Interactive Performance in the Madang Then and Now","author":"Katrina Stuart Santiago","date":"November 30, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Younghee Park*, Jeremy Neideck** and Caroline Heim*** Abstract Historically and contemporaneously, the role of audiences in South Korean performing arts has been inherently interactive. The T\u2019alch\u2019um (mask dance) and P\u2019ansori (Korean traditional solo opera) were mainly performed in the madang, a marketplace or courtyard; an environment which fostered a more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;National Reports&quot;","block_context":{"text":"National Reports","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/national-reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/featured-2.jpg?fit=800%2C532&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/featured-2.jpg?fit=800%2C532&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/featured-2.jpg?fit=800%2C532&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/featured-2.jpg?fit=800%2C532&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":599,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/aural-oral-dramaturgies-editors-introduction\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":2},"title":"Aural\/Oral Dramaturgies: Editors\u2019 Introduction","author":"Katrina Stuart Santiago","date":"December 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo: Giudi di Gesaro (Silvia Mercuriali\u2019s Swimming Home) Du\u0161ka Radosavljevi\u0107* and Flora Pitrolo** It is, perhaps, particularly suitable to our topic of dramaturgies of speech and sound that the process of putting together a special journal issue functions on the principle of call and response. In our Call for Papers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Special Topic&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Special Topic","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/special-topic\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Silvia-Mercuriali-Swimming-Home-photo-credit-giudi-di-gesaro.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Silvia-Mercuriali-Swimming-Home-photo-credit-giudi-di-gesaro.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Silvia-Mercuriali-Swimming-Home-photo-credit-giudi-di-gesaro.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/Silvia-Mercuriali-Swimming-Home-photo-credit-giudi-di-gesaro.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":286,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/the-access-point-in-st-petersburg-interview-with-filipp-vulakh-yulia-kleiman-and-alexei-platunov\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":3},"title":"The Access Point in St. Petersburg: Interview with Filipp Vulakh, Yulia Kleiman and Alexei Platunov","author":"Katrina Stuart Santiago","date":"November 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Nikolai Pesochinsky* The seventh Access Point festival in St. Petersburg during the summer of 2021 has been described as a \"forum for site-specific and immersive art.\" Simply put, the festival performances placed game events in non-theatrical spaces and engaged the spectators in active participation. Experimenting with urban space, these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Interviews&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image7-1.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image7-1.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image7-1.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/11\/image7-1.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":719,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/franchised-recycled-performance-as-a-theatre-of-ecology\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":4},"title":"Franchised\/Recycled Performance as a Theatre of Ecology","author":"Katrina Stuart Santiago","date":"December 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Ivan Medenica* Abstract There could be different manifestations of a \u201ctheatre of ecology\u201d: from new versions of a so-called poor theatre with the use of reduced and\/or recycled materials, including set design, props and costumes, to the concept of an eco-dramaturgy with stories that are not centred only on human\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Conference Papers&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Conference Papers","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/conference-papers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/12\/image6-1.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":178,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/the-global-role-of-iti-interview-with-tobias-biancone\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":5},"title":"The Global Role of ITI: Interview with Tobias Biancone","author":"Katrina Stuart Santiago","date":"October 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Savas Patsalidis* Tobias Biancone is a Swiss citizen residing in Switzerland, France and China. An award-winning poet; his poetry and story books have been published in Germany, Switzerland, Russia and Bangladesh. After being active as a member of ITI in the Swiss Centre and worldwide, he accepted the position\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Interviews&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/category\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/10\/image4-4.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/10\/image4-4.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/10\/image4-4.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2021\/10\/image4-4.jpeg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}