New Theatre Architects
England, 2003 onwards.
Supported by strategic funding from Arts Council England.
New Theatre Architects (formerly the Experimental Theatre Consortium) was a group of eight individuals (Louise Blackwell, Helen Cole, Matt Fenton, Stephen Hodge, Lucia Hogg, David Jubb, Annie Lloyd and David Micklem) with a direct relationship to the development of experimental theatre practice in England. They were brought together in the first instance by the Senior Theatre Officer at the national office of Arts Council England. They sought to challenge artists and organisations to rethink how theatre can be made and supported in England. To examine/question existing structures and institutions which surround and support experimental theatre practice. To promote a risk-taking and creative approach to producing and curatorship. To foster shared practice, collaboration and cross-fertilisation of ideas and approaches. To reclaim the word theatre for the experimenters, the questioners.
In 2006, each member of the group commissioned an artist to work with them in responding to the questions ‘What is a theatre? Where is it and how do you get there?’ Taking the questions literally, Stephen went searching for answers on foot in Berlin with Dan Belasco Rogers. A series of jointly-authored artists’ pages were published in Performance Research 12:2 (‘On The Road’) in 2007.
Images: Stephen Hodge, Dan Belasco Rogers.