Site-specific theatre

Site-specific theatre is most simply defined as a performance which exists in a particular place. However, there remains a widespread debate about any more precise a definition. Some argue that any performance which takes place outside a theatre can be labeled site-specific. Other more rigorous practitioners argue that the title can only be applied to a production which has been developed in, developed from, and performed in, a specific place.

For example, if a company stages a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in a forest, is it site-specific? If one is concerned only with meeting the requirements of the basic definitions of the words "site" and "specific" then, yes, that production may be called site-specific. If that were the case though, some argue, any production could be called site-specific because it has been staged with adherence to the physical limitations of the space. This is why others contend that a production should meet more stringent requirements before being called site-specific. They say a production should be developed in the space and be, in some way, about the space. It should also not be able to be performed outside the space.

It is important here to distinguish between site-specific and site-generic. (A term possibly coined by Andy Field in a blog in the UK Guardian, 6/2/08^{[citation needed]}) If a company created a play for a football pitch, and then could tour that production to any football pitch in the world, it should be called site-generic. If it created a work for a specific pitch, where they addressed the issues, people, myths, and context of that pitch - then it should be called site-specific.

In the absence of any formal association of site-specific practitioners, the definition of site-specific will remain malleable.

Examples

Examples of site-specific theatre include Psycho-So-Matic and Downsize, staged by Chicago's Walkabout Theater in a landromat and a series of public restrooms, respectively; Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$, staged by Women's Project in the lobbies, escalators, and bridges of New York's World Financial Center; Supernatural Chicago, staged in an allegedly haunted nightclub, and Small Metal Objects, staged by Australia's Back To Back Theater at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal. Another example of this form is the Ramlila, dramatic enactment of Hindu epic, Ramayana, started in 1830 by Maharaja Udit Narayan Singh of Varanasi. It is held each year over the period of 31 days, during autumn festive season of Dussehra at Ramnagar, Varanasi in India, and is staged in permanent structures created as sets throughout the three square mile area, where the audience follow the actors. Ramlila has been declared by the UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.

N.B. These are examples of productions which have been labeled site-specific simply because they took place outside a traditional theatre space. A strong argument can be made here that more information is needed to know whether or not these productions are specific to the site or if they are "site-generic" meaning they could be staged in any physically similar venue.

A secondary definition of environmental theater is used to describe any production that attempts to immerse the audience in the performance by bringing the action off the stage area.^{[citation needed]} For example, some acting may happen in aisles. In the case of a black box theater acting platforms may even be built between audience section. Sometimes a performer will talk to, or otherwise involve an audience member in a scene. This can be a real audience member, as in interactive theater, or an actor planted to appear as an audience member.

There are a couple variations on site-specific work worth noting. They include:

• Environmental Theatre, in which a pre-existing production is placed in an environment similar to the one in which the play is set. i.e. performing Hamlet in a Danish Castle.
• Promenade theater, in which there is little or no seating for audience members, who watch the action happening among them and may follow the performers around the space. An example of promenade theater are the performances put on by Punchdrunk, a UK based theater company.

Different Levels of Site Specificity

• Studio/Stage based Production - not site specific at all
• Studio as site - e.g. using the theatre space in an unusual way, for example, performing in the aisles - not site-specific either.
• Site as contextual container - e.g. Midsummer produced in a forest.
• Site Generic - using a particular kind of site, e.g. performance for football pitch, or Steven Koplowitz's "Grand Staircase" performance
• Site Responsive - using the site as resource for the performance material. e.g. #3 HOLD by Scrap and Salvage of San Francisco. created and performed in the bottom deck of a cargo ship - the USS golden bear.

Different Ways of Using the Site

• Site as Thematic or Narrative Resource
• Site as Architectural Space

References

Related reading

• Pearson, Mike; Shanks, Michael (2001). Theatre/archaeology: Disciplinary Dialogues. Routeledge. ISBN 041519458X.  ISBN 978-0415194587
• Kaye, Nick (2000). Site Specific Art: Place and Documentation. Routeledge. ISBN 0415185580.  ISBN 978-0415185585

External links

Companies performing site-specific work

Australia

• Anywhere Theatre Festival (Brisbane) "Anywhere Theatre Festival 2012". Anywherefest.com. http://www.anywherefest.com/. Retrieved 2011-12-10. 
• Back To Back Theater

Canada

• FIXT POINT (TORONTO, ON, CANADA)
• Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre (Calgary, AB, Canada)
• Electric Company Theatre (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
• Litmus Theatre (Toronto, ON, Canada)

Ireland

• Semper Fi"semperfi". Panpantheatre.com. http://www.panpantheatre.com/Sym_03/companys/semperfi.htm. Retrieved 2011-12-10. 

Netherlands

• Dogtroep

Spain

• Reial Companyia de Teatre de Catalunya (Barcelona, Catalonia)

UK

• Forster & Heighes (England, UK)
• Frantic Assembly) (England, UK)
• Grid Iron (Scotland, UK)
• in situ: (England, UK)
• The Invisible Circus (Bristol, UK)

www.offstage.org.uk Offstage Theatre (London, UK)

• The Sans Walk Project (London, UK)
• Scarabeus Theatre (England, UK)
• seven sisters group (England, UK)
• Slung Low (Leeds, UK)
• Wilson+Wilson (UK)

USA

• Lucia Neare's Theatrical Wonders (Seattle, USA)
• Nu Dance Theater (New York, USA)
• Peculiar Works Project (New York, NY, USA)
• Scrap and Salvage (San Francisco, USA)
• Skewed Visions (Minnesota, USA)
• St. David High School (Arizona, USA)
• Supernatural Chicago (Chicago, USA) Supernatural Chicago's website
• Theater Anew - Established plays in unique performance venues (San Francisco, CA)
• Third Rail Projects (USA)
• Walkabout Theater (Chicago, USA)