What If Theatre Refused to Be Safe?

From its Dionysian origins, theatre was a public space where societies wrestled with ethical, political, and spiritual questions. A space of ritual, danger, and collective catharsis. Antonin Artaud imagined theatre as a purifying violence; Bertolt Brecht as a space of critical awakening. Through the rise of the nation-state and the comfort that followed, theatre slowly drifted away from its ecstatic, communal roots and became a safe cultural commodity. Something to be consumed, not lived. Once, theatre lived close to danger: to death, to pain, to ecstasy. Now it often survives as a tame, polished form. 

The gathering begins at 17:23, the exact time of sunset on January 30th, and continues until around 3:00 AM. With the setting sun, we enter a liminal time in which different forces emerge, those that resist the rational, the measurable, the quantifiable. Boundaries blur, and different realms begin to merge. Theatre as an undefined space capable of shaking existing narratives and imagining possible new ones. At its core, it is a dangerous space. Not because it wounds, but because it lives. Its attempt to create community is ‘dangerous’, as it threatens to question the isolation and atomization of our times. It gathers bodies breathing the same air, bodies that might collide, resist, or transform one another.  

This evening program is a space of risk where control fails, where every gesture is uncertain and every silence is charged. A place to reflect, to celebrate, to scream, to move, to practice what it might feel like to imagine no borders, to bring in voices that are not physically here; a moment to twist time, to sit together in exhaustion, but also in joy, intimacy, and celebration: loud, communal, and unpredictable.