Kyrgyzstan was new but so familiar.

I haven’t travelled a lot, so my residency in January 2020 in Kyrgyzstan was more than one ‘first’ (or nearly ‘first’), the most important of which was my first experience interacting with, and learning from practitioners of theatre as an art form.

Before I decided to develop my practice towards immersive theatre, I can’t say I really thought about it as an art form, or as something that could, or can be done in more than one general way. With the exception of genres, to an outsider, theatre can seem like a monolith with a standard setup; the players, the stage, and the audience that passively observes. I was excited to learn, that this definitely is not the only format that theatre operates in and can really be stretched and bent to the will of the creator, whether it is to involve the audience, to remove the stage, or reconstruct it entirely (in terms of design or concept).

With Art Group 705 I was more than delighted by how a small group of people comes together to create and share together. The network that I was exposed to facilitate my learning experience was far-reaching and in possession of a wide range of knowledge. It is something I admire and hope I can encourage my peers here to do.