fbpx Physical Theatre | HowlRound Theatre Commons

Physical Theatre

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.

The Latest

Using Technology to Heal Trauma
Podcast
Using Technology to Heal Trauma
by Tjaša Ferme, Heidi Boisvert
11 January 2024
What Ensemble Touring Can Learn from Dance
Podcast
What Ensemble Touring Can Learn from Dance
by Jeffrey Mosser, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
29 March 2023
Movement Is for Every Body
Essay
Movement Is for Every Body
by Katie Butler
23 March 2023
Theatre Tech Talks teaser image with guest Heidi Boisvert's headshot.
Using Technology to Heal Trauma
Podcast

Using Technology to Heal Trauma

11 January 2024

Guest Heidi Bosivert believes that our bodies are archives of stories and if we can't get those stories out, the whole fabric of society will break down. When she worked in tech, addressing social issues, she had a crisis of faith and figured that bringing people into physical spaces and working with the body might be one way of mitigating deleterious effects of technology. Now, she’s creating a media biogenome.

From the Ground Up Podcast Teaser image.
What Ensemble Touring Can Learn from Dance
Podcast

What Ensemble Touring Can Learn from Dance

29 March 2023

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.

A performer wearing black and a mask standing on top of a box with arms in the air.
Movement Is for Every Body
Essay

Movement Is for Every Body

23 March 2023

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.

Critical Stages in Malawian Contemporary Theatre teaser image with the title at the top and a picture of the guest in the middle.
Dance for Change
Podcast

Dance for Change

A Conversation with Robert Magasa

26 October 2022

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.

PUHA Podcast Teaser.
Autobiography
Podcast

Autobiography

12 October 2022

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.

PUHA Podcast Teaser.
Disability
Podcast

Disability

5 October 2022

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.

Round headshots of speakers on a yellow background with podcast title
Improvisation
Podcast

Improvisation

28 September 2022

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.

PUHA Podcast Teaser.
Visual Arts
Podcast

Visual Arts

21 September 2022

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!

One actor stands on stage under a spotlight, kicking towards the audience.
Moving Theatre Toward Collective Self-Defense: Virginia Grise’s Your Healing is Killing Me
Essay

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.

event poster with text details for unrehearsed futures episode nine.
MASTER-LESS
Video

MASTER-LESS

Episode 9: Women Teaching Physical Theatre

Thursday 3 June 2021
South Africa

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).

event poster with text for episode 6 of unrehearsed futures.
Unrehearsed Futures: Serious Play
Video

Unrehearsed Futures: Serious Play

Towards Decolonizing Physical Theatre Pedagogies

Thursday 13 May 2021
South Africa

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).

three people standing outside
Liberating Terror
Essay

Liberating Terror

Clown and Activism

13 November 2020

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.”

Glod in red, a silhouette of a person with their arm raised.
Ashtar Theatre’s Oranges and Stones
Video

Ashtar Theatre’s Oranges and Stones

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).

a clown nose on a laptop
Theatre, Clown, and Physical Comedy… Online?
Essay

Theatre, Clown, and Physical Comedy… Online?

17 August 2020

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.

“We're Not Learning History...We're Living it"
Essay

“We're Not Learning History...We're Living it"

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
Essay

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.

Interview with Thando Doni
Essay

Interview with Thando Doni

15 October 2016

In this last installment, Paul Adolphsen interviews South African theatremaker Thando Doni about his artistic use of language and physical theatre.

Performance of Gale Theatre Company’s Salomé 
Video

Performance of Gale Theatre Company’s Salomé 

Friday 12 August 2016
Austin, TX, United States

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.

Physical Theatre and Public Policy Hooliganism
Essay

Physical Theatre and Public Policy Hooliganism

31 July 2015

Blair Ruble addresses the recent criticism of Synetic Theater’s artistic adaptations of Shakespeare. 

Exemplary Youth Theater in Albany Park Theatre Project’s God’s Work
Essay

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.

Photo from Forgiveness: A Theatrical Poem.
The Mystery of Forgiveness at the Modern Times Stage Company
Essay

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. 

Every Actor's Nightmare, Inverted
Essay

Every Actor's Nightmare, Inverted

21 November 2013

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.

 

Critical Stages in Malawian Contemporary Theatre
Critical Stages in Malawian Contemporary Theatre
Series

Critical Stages in Malawian Contemporary Theatre

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.