Physical Theatre

Physical theatre is used to describe any mode of performance that pursues storytelling or drama through primarily physical means rather than textual, often with emphasis on musical elements. Most Physical Theatre traditions share a collaborative devising approach to theatrical development and creation. Being devised, each physical theatre performance may be quite different to another one. However, some common elements found throughout physical theatre include:

• Work is often devised, rather than originated from a pre-existing script.
• Work has inter-disciplinary origins – it crosses between music, dance, visual art as well as theatre.
• Work challenges the traditional, proscenium arch, performer/audience relationship.
• Work celebrates the non-passive audience.
• Work utilises the imagination of the audience in conjunction with the imagination of the performers.

Daniel Stein, a famous teacher working in physical theatre, gave the following wonderful statement:

“I think physical theatre is much more visceral and audiences are affected much more viscerally than intellectually. The foundation of theatre is a live, human experience, which is different from any other form of art that I know of. Live theatre, where real human beings are standing in front of real human beings, is about the fact that we have all set aside this hour; the sharing goes in both directions. The fact that it is a very physical, visceral form makes it a very different experience from almost anything else that we partake of in our lives. I don’t think we could do it the same way if we were doing literary-based theatre.”

SCAPA Director Cara Phillips has a great passion for Physical Theatre, and aims to develop a performance company, hopefully with some of the students from SCAPA (if they are interested!)