What is Total Theatre

What is Total Theatre? It is a hard term to pin down, and one that I feel is ever expanding.

Total Theatre is a created when a performance showcases the totality of the human being/spirit by involving each element of performance, full implementation of voice, dance, and acting skill and by grounding a connection to someplace deeper, a shared wavelength for the performers and their audience.

In America, we have a divided theatre. One may go to the ballet to see dance, to the movies to see drama with Matt Damon, and to a concert to listen to music. Not all the world is like this. In many traditional, and evolving indigenous arts, there exists a space where all elements of the performing arts can take place simultaneously. We see this in the Kabuki theatre of Japan, where the world itself means song (ka), dance (bu), acting skill. Total Theatre takes on an expanded meaning, when reflecting on the religious performances, deeply embodying the spirituality and history of a people, such as in Balinese gamelan dance performances. Still, Total Theatre is evolving, and it exists to fill the space of a need for people, to protect, to affirm, and for the flourishment of culture and human connection. In the case of the people of the Basque Country, total theatre is the idea behind their popular public street performances. The Basque's native language, Euskara, having been banned under Francoism for many years, relied upon many methods to push their language into the public eye. Free theatre in public plazas became a rallying call to proliferate the use of language and created opportunities for many local people to hear it.

I hope to investigate these topics, and am open to exploring other forms of Total Theatre as they face me on the trip. If you know of any other examples of Total Theatre, or have your own thoughts how to expand the definition, feel free to leave a comment below.

This is a brief introduction of the idea of Total Theatre and what it means for this project, more to be explored in the future.

Best,

Mark