Articles
Breaking Free from Deterministic Reality: Theatre and Probabilistic Perception
by Roberto Prestigiacomo
Introduction
Theatre has long been shaped by a dualistic understanding of reality where the external world is observed, analyzed, and recreated on stage. In this model, the performer interprets an external reality and presents it to the audience, either mimetically or through commentary. This paper explores a methodology designed to harvest the internal realities of the Inner World and transform them into performance, offering an alternative approach to theatrical creation that moves beyond deterministic structures. The research draws from over two decades of experimentation with ProbabilisticStages1, an approach that reconsiders theatrical space, time, and performance through the lens of contemporary perception of reality.
Theory: The Collapse of Certainty
Newtonian determinism has shaped every aspect of Western civilization, deeply embedding itself into our scientific, social, cultural, political, and artistic structures. Alongside Aristotelian philosophy, it has constructed the mindset through which we have understood reality, structured our institutions, organized society, and created art. This deterministic model has particularly affected the artistic reflections of human perception, making it difficult to break free from the preordained, mechanistic view of reality and respond to the emerging probabilistic paradigm. We are wearing a powerful headset that immerses us in this deterministic framework, and it is challenging to explore alternatives. To truly engage with reality as it develops, we must remove this headset, detach from our ingrained Classical and Newtonian biases, and observe the world from a distance. We need a radical shift in perception, which demands we step aside from the rigid structures of determinism and control and approach reality with an openness to fluidity, uncertainty, and dynamic interactions.
Over the past century, reality has increasingly revealed itself as a probabilistic field of possibilities instead of a fixed, mechanical system. Stable societal structures and long-held convictions have begun to crumble, giving way to uncertainty, disorientation, and existential anxiety. Wars, economic instability, mass migrations, and global pandemics have accelerated this unraveling, exposing the fragility of social systems that once seemed reliable. In response to this destabilization, contemporary society has fractured into two distinct reactions. One segment, unsettled by uncertainty, longs for the deterministic order of the past, seeking rigid structures and authoritative figures to impose stability and restore a sense of control. The other unknowingly embraces the shift toward probabilistic reality yet remains confused, as it lacks the conceptual tools to grasp this transformation fully. This schism reflects a profound existential crisis that mirrors the transition of the perception of reality from Newtonian physics to a relative and quantistic world. Historically, we understood the world through causality, determinism, and predictable order; now, probability, relationality, and emergent phenomena shape our reality, yet most of us continue to operate deterministically, trapped in an outdated cognitive mindset. Most contemporary theatre still operates within the deterministic framework of Aristotle and Newton, although reality no longer functions in a Newtonian way. If theatre is to be relevant and a transformative force, it must register this dichotomy between our deterministic conditioning and the emerging probabilistic world. We are too deeply plugged into a manufactured perception of reality that feeds us narratives of stability, order, and control while distorting our ability to see the world for what it truly is. As long as we remain emotionally invested in deterministic structures, we cannot perceive the nature of reality as we experience it now. Unplugging from rigid political, social, and historical frameworks that demand constant engagement and reactivity is essential. As long as our perception is tethered to prevailing discourses, we remain in a position of response rather than actual creation, limiting our ability to navigate and shape new artistic and conceptual possibilities. In America, the political discourse has trapped us in the illusion that we must contribute to it, one way or another. Our current political agents' overwhelming need for attention has imposed its narrative upon us, forcing us to keep plugged into its destructive cycles. This addiction to political spectacle deprives us of perspective and power, leaving us trapped in a reactive state rather than fostering genuine artistic and intellectual autonomy. Artists must reclaim their power to shape history through their work instead of being compelled to mirror imposed realities. We must reject the expectation that artists must immerse themselves in reality to serve as mere commentators. Once we unplug, we can start perceiving, observing, and exploring our inner reality untainted by ideological narratives that dominate a society hooked on external validation, forcing cause-to-effect narratives and deterministic outcomes. Then, we can create and develop new artistic methodologies that align with the probabilistic nature of existence, moving beyond outdated forms rooted in control, predictability, and linearity.
New Tools for a Probabilistic Theatre
Once we recognize reality as probabilistic, nonlinear, and relational, we can no longer rely on old artistic methodologies; we must develop new tools to engage with probabilistic daily life. How can an actor trained in method acting, a deterministic approach to character psychology, perform a probabilistic, indeterminate world? How can visual artists, trained in linear perspective and naturalism, reflect reality as both a wave and a particle? How can directors and playwrights create performances that are indeterminate in their very structure? Even when playwrights write plays that disrupt Newtonian order and Aristotleian poetica, playing with nonlinear time, fragmented space, and probabilistic narrative structures, those texts are still rehearsed and staged using deterministic theatre techniques, pulling them back into the gravitational force of Newtonian dramaturgy. Nietzsche2 famously argued that modernity had "killed God" by replacing religious belief with science and technology. Yet, society still clung to the moral and ethical structures once grounded in religion. This led to a crisis of meaning, where humanity found itself adrift, lacking the existential framework to navigate a post-theistic world. Similarly, today, we have moved past Newtonian determinism, yet we continue to operate with linear structures in our social, artistic, and philosophical thinking. Nietzsche’s solution was the Übermensch, the Overman, who would construct meaning from within themselves independently of religious dogma. We need an Überkünstler for the probabilistic age, an Overartist who fully embraces uncertainty, fluidity, and multiplicity. This Overartist, once unplugged from the Aristotelian/Newtonian "headset," can perceive the larger contextual shifts shaping our world and creating new paradigmatic approaches to theatre and art.
Praxis: Rethinking Performance Through the Inner World
Our immersion in daily events, media spectacles, and political dramas creates the illusion of engagement and awareness. Yet, this very immersion restricts our ability to perceive the underlying structures shaping reality. The deeper our emotional investment in deterministic narratives, the more we become subject to their influence, unable to recognize the constructed nature of their frameworks. Theatre can break this dependency by developing a mindset that reveals, rather than obscures, the complexity of our lived experience. This requires new methodologies in acting, directing, and design that embrace indeterminacy, a departure from rigid narrative structures in favor of emergent, relational storytelling, and the recognition that art must not merely depict reality but actively shape our perception. To unplug, at ProbabilisitcStages, we asked two questions. What kind of experience can we offer a community if, instead of relying on the traditional dualistic observation of reality, we create theatrical content by exploring the inner world of the ensemble members when devising community-based performances? And, what methodology must we develop to collect, value, and transform the wealth of the community's experiences, emotions, and intuitions?
Here, we share the results of this inquiry, detailing the methodology applied in two projects realized in Sicily: Virennu Facennu (2022), developed with volunteers from the Sant’Egidio Community in Catania, and Ma Solo 36? (2023), created with graduating students from the DAMS at the University of Palermo.
These projects are part of over 20 years of theatrical and performance investigation through ProbabilisticStages. Our work embraces our current immersive and aural reception of reality, engaging the brain's right hemisphere in perceiving a relative, relational, and probabilistic reality. We perceive daily life as defined by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics while questioning the deterministic and linear understanding of the world of Aristotle’s Poetic and Newtonian physics. In this traditional view, the linear progression of the narrative is dictated by cause and effect, where the unity of action is central to the dramatic movement. The unities of space and time, first outlined in Aristotle’s Poetics3 and later formalized during the Neoclassical period, became the three fundamental rules governing dramatic structure. With the advent of Newtonian physics in Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica4, the principle of causality was elevated to a dogma. Space was now conceived as an empty container waiting to be filled, and time was understood as a linear flow, moving inexorably from past to future through the present. Newton provided a model in which nature functioned as a deterministic “clockwork universe” governed by immutable laws. This paradigm implied that given the initial conditions of any system, its future evolution could be predicted with absolute certainty, reinforcing the idea that nature was rational, predictable, and reducible to universal principles.
Deterministic structures rooted in Aristotle and Newton have shaped Theatre from its inception. In Poetics, Aristotle established the foundations of dramatic structure, emphasizing that a well-formed tragedy should adhere to a sense of aesthetic and dramatic unity. Aristotle’s emphasis on unity stems from his broader thought, articulated in Physics5 and On the Heavens6. He posits that change in the natural world follows a purposeful trajectory, moving toward a final cause. In Poetics, this principle is applied to drama; a tragedy should be a closed system in which every event follows necessarily from what precedes it, leading inevitably to catharsis. “Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole and of a certain magnitude; for there may be a whole that is wanting magnitude. A whole is that which has a beginning, middle, and an end.”7 This structuring of reality was not limited to drama. In On the Heavens, Aristotle applies the same logic to cosmology, portraying the universe as an ordered system of concentric spheres where celestial bodies follow precise and immutable paths. He argues that nature is inherently designed to achieve the most optimal arrangement, with all things in motion tending toward their best possible state. In this model, much like a dramatic plot unfolds according to necessity, the heavens operate within a self-contained system governed by intrinsic laws of motion and purpose. Aristotle's structured perception of reality shaped Western civilization for over two thousand years and continues to influence how we think, create, read, and interpret theatre today. When Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica replaced Aristotle’s teleological cosmos with a mechanistic, mathematically precise framework, the linearity, the unities, and the theatre deterministic approach were reinforced. Newton’s three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation established a universe governed by predictable forces in which time, space, and causality operated with absolute certainty.
In Book I of Principia, Newton describes time and space as independent, homogeneous, and universal: “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.”8 Similarly, “Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.”9 This Newtonian worldview fortifies the existing Neoclassical interpretation of the Three Unities. If the universe operated under absolute laws of motion, theatre should adhere to strict causal structures to reflect that perception of reality. In the Neoclassical period, dramatists such as Racine and Corneille systematized the Three Unities into rigid conventions, mirroring Newton’s rationalist approach to nature. Theatre became a mechanical construct in which every action followed a necessary cause, unfolding within a predetermined spatial and temporal framework. Just as Newton’s laws dictated the motion of planets, the Three Unities dictated the motion of characters and the making of theatre, which is still the primary approach to theatre today.
The TransPerformance Process
In the 20th century, Einstein’s theory of relativity10 shattered the notion of absolute time and space, demonstrating that they are fluid and dependent on the observer’s frame of reference. Later, quantum mechanics introduced the principle of superposition11, where multiple potential states coexist until observation collapses them into a singular outcome. This led to the development of Observer Theory12, which reinforces the idea that meaning and reality emerge dynamically from the interaction between the observer (whether an audience member, performer, or artist) and the observed (performance, reality, or artwork). This shift in physics parallels the breakdown of the Three Unities in modern theatre. Playwrights such as Brecht, Beckett, and Artaud rejected the constraints of unified time, space, and action, embracing fragmented narratives, multiple temporalities and plots, and non-linear structures. As mentioned above, we still produce those plays applying an Aristotelian and Newtonian structure. In the past 20 years, with ProbabilisticStages, we have looked for alternatives by applying the principles of modern physics directly to the theatrical process, where time becomes a probabilistic flow.
Figure 2. Image from 14 a TransPerformance. Photograph taken by Siggi Ragnar, 2016
Instead of a singular, linear progression, time in ProbabilisticStages unfolds as a field of possibilities. Scenes do not necessarily follow a fixed sequence but emerge dynamically from the ensemble’s interactions according to the need of the performative moment. We consider space to be relational, not absolute. Performance does not occur in a fixed container but in a fluid environment shaped by the actors’ movements and audience engagement. Instead of a singular, preordained action, ProbabilisticStages embraces multiplicity, and emergent narrative replaces the unity of action.
Exploring the Inner World is only one of the many thought experiments in a 20-year journey of developing alternative structures to bring probabilistic theatrical life to classical and modern written texts. This exploration is part of Probabilistic Stages, a volume we are currently writing, which examines how theatre can break away from deterministic frameworks. With Inner World exploration, we move beyond adapting existing texts and focus on devised performances where the text emerges as a fluctuating matrix of images, emotions, and subconscious narratives. Through techniques such as Active Imagination and Asemic Writing, performers access deep subconscious material, allowing themes to surface organically rather than imposing a predetermined storyline. This approach transforms theatre into a dynamic field of possibilities where meaning is continuously generated through interaction, perception, and probability. This process aligns with Jung’s concept of archetypes13 as universal but contextually fluid structures. Just as quantum particles do not exist in a definite state until observed, the archetypal themes in the Inner World exploration exist in a state of flux, shaping and being shaped by the ensemble’s engagement, opening new avenues for expression and storytelling. We will discuss the methodology developed to generate theatrical content from this interior dimension, demonstrating how the Inner World is a vital and authentic theatrical material.
The Generative Process: Harvesting the Inner World
The process of gathering material from the Inner World integrates multiple creative techniques, including:
● Thematic and Spatial Exploration
● Automatic Writing
● Active Imagination
● Asemic Writing
● Monologue
● Image and Forum Theatre
● Three-Image Workshop
Before delving into these steps, we must introduce the container supporting this process.
The Panoramic Field: A Living Archive of the Inner World
The first step of the process is to set up a Google Drive, which is the archive of the work the ensemble creates. One crucial document is The Panoramic Field14, which serves as a multidimensional platform for collecting generative work, texts, images, sounds, and intuitions, creating a dynamic foundation for performance. This shared book is a live repository where ensemble members contribute their discoveries and simultaneously observe the evolving material of their peers. This platform is integral to the creative process, allowing real-time engagement within the developing performance landscape.
Thematic and Spatial Exploration
Every community has a preferred mode of creative expression. Exploring theme and space helps identify this mode rather than imposing theatre as the default expression in socially engaged projects. For example, in Virennu Facennu15, the collective consisted of women involved in social work within the Sant’Egidio Community, none of whom had prior theatre experience. Their communal gatherings often included participation in church services, where choral moments, spoken and sung recitations formed a familiar performative narrative. Consequently, we crafted Virennu Facennu following this familiar structure and staging it within a church setting. In Ma Solo 36?, our exploration centered on the dynamic interplay between the Inner World, spatial arrangement, and the evolving relationship between performers and their audience. The ensemble, composed of graduating university students, was uniquely positioned to reflect upon their imminent futures. The ensemble moved through various spatial dynamics, from the conventional proscenium and thrust stages to more fluid and interactive forms such as in-the-round, black box, promenade, and immersive site-specific settings. Without the limitations of a single dedicated venue, this spatial fluidity became a fundamental aspect of our methodology, continuously shaping and refining our understanding of how space influences the performative act and the exploration of the inner world. As the process transitioned from spatial to thematic investigation, rehearsal began with meditation sessions. These meditative moments functioned as a bridge, enabling performers to shift away from the structured rhythms of daily life and into the generative realm of inner exploration. We guided the performers through visualization exercises that began with an aerial perspective of their tangible existence within the rehearsal space before expanding outward, encouraging them to imagine their "safe future place," a sanctuary or emotional state they associated with their envisioned future selves.
Figure 3. Image from Ma Solo 36? a TransPerformance during Spatial Exploration. Photograph taken by the author, 2023
Each session concluded with performers documenting their introspections in the Panoramic Field. Through this process, we observed a clear pattern: when rational, goal-oriented methods solely directed imagination, they tended to generate predictable or superficial material. However, by shifting from meditation to Active Imagination, we cultivated a space where personal and collective themes could emerge organically. The imagery from these sessions deepened the performers' connection to their narratives and inspired the ensemble to explore the fluidity of their Inner World. This fusion of spatial experimentation and inner-world exploration allowed us to break away from rigid theatrical conventions, crafting a process that was neither wholly pre-scripted nor improvisational but instead emerged probabilistically from the ensemble's interactions, insights, and shared discoveries. Ma Solo 36? became a theatre of fluidity, where exploring space, the subconscious, and the thematic core of "the future" unfolded in dynamic, relational ways.
Automatic Writing
Automatic writing provides a unique avenue for generating material that diverges from text shaped by observation or conventional analytical processes. Rather than drawing from external stimuli or weaving a narrative through calculated thought, automatic writing offers an unfiltered stream of expression that is symbolic, abstract, and often archetypal. Unlike traditional writing, which is subject to self-censorship, logical structuring, and deliberate meaning-making, automatic writing bypasses these filters, resulting in unpredictable, raw, and emotionally charged text. This lends a distinctive authenticity to the material, capturing the nuances of internal states and unconscious associations, inviting interpretation and contemplation, and exploring the world as it is felt. Because this process unfolds without predetermined rules or structural constraints, it fosters the emergence of experimental forms, unconventional narratives, and groundbreaking ideas that would not surface through conscious planning alone.
Active Imagination
Active Imagination acts as a quantum field, where multiple storylines exist simultaneously before being actualized in performance. Adapted from Carl Jung’s work, Active Imagination is a core technique in our creative process, a portal to the artist’s dormant creative potential. Carl Jung discusses Active Imagination extensively in his works, presenting it as a fundamental method for engaging directly with the unconscious. In The Transcendent Function16 and The Red Book17, Active Imagination is described as a bridge between conscious and unconscious thought, allowing fantasies to emerge spontaneously and take form, engaging in deep psychological and symbolic exploration. We incorporated our version of Active Imagination into our process to harvest the richness of subconscious imagery for performance creation. Through stages of refinement, we discovered that Active Imagination could lead to expansive, epic journeys or whimsical explorations, each unfolding behind the safety of closed eyelids. It became a field of potential encounters, a probabilistic and fluid landscape where dreams, fantasies, transient images, and spontaneous visualizations were invaluable reservoirs of unexplored emotional, creative, and intellectual material. This approach allowed us to tap into a source of imagery unfiltered by logical constraints, accessing the deeper layers of the Inner World. In rehearsal, actors were encouraged to find a comfortable position before closing their eyes. Each session began with quiet attunement, where performers allowed spontaneous imagery to emerge without forcing meaning or structure. Witnessing and following the unfolding images, letting them evolve, dissolve, transform, and actively engage with the fantastical narrative behind closed eyelids, allowed the actors to unlock a portal into a vast and dynamic inner landscape.
After each inner journey, actors documented their experiences in the Panoramic Field. They were encouraged to describe what they saw without interpretation or embellishment, preserving the raw essence of their experiences. This method ensured the imagery remained authentic, capturing its symbolic potency before external analysis could diminish its impact. Patterns often emerged, revealing recurring symbols and motifs aligned with Jung’s Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious18. The Active Imagination process generated material and illuminated shared subconscious narratives within the ensemble, reinforcing the idea that theatre is not just an external construct but an emergent reality born from collective inner worlds. Active Imagination allowed us to move beyond predetermined narratives and adopt a performative approach that surfaced organically from subconscious exploration. By engaging deeply with the fluidity of the inner world, our work transcended traditional storytelling, creating theatre discovered in real-time.
Figure 4. Image from Asemic Writing Sample, during Ma Solo 36? a TransPerformance, Photograph taken by the author, 2023
Asemic Writing
Derived from the term asemic, meaning lacking specific semantic content, Asemic Writing is an open vessel for subconscious thought-producing visual metaphors, coded expressions of emotions, thoughts, and spiritual insights that transcend conventional linguistic articulation. By working with the other generative tools, Asemic Writing becomes essential in harvesting material from the Inner World and translating it into performance. Asemic Writing engages both the intentional kinesthetic movement of the hand and the spontaneity of unfiltered thoughts and emotions. The seemingly random lines, shapes, and curves that emerge on paper are symbols, maps of an inner terrain often too elusive or complex for direct verbalization. These inscriptions, devoid of structured language, become a bridge between the personal and the collective, allowing subconscious imagery to take a fluid and intuitive form unrestricted by the logic of conventional communication.
Figure 5. Image from Asemic Writing Sample, during Ma Solo 36? a TransPerformance, Photograph taken by the author, 2023
The process of Asemic Writing unfolds in a calibrated sequence. Immediately following sessions of Active Imagination and Automatic Writing, when the subconscious has been engaged, and internal imagery is at its most vivid, actors enter a timed session of Asemic Writing. This occurs in two phases: a ten-minute free-writing exploration, during which performers allow their pens to move instinctively without imposed structure, followed by fifteen minutes dedicated to translating and finishing the transmitted signs. This time-sensitive approach is intentional; it preserves the raw urgency of subconscious communication, ensuring that impressions remain immediate and unfiltered rather than over-analyzed or rationalized. The atmosphere of the moment is crucial. The preceding exercises function as a form of mental and emotional "tillage," loosening the soil of the subconscious so that Asemic Writing can take root. The ensemble’s writings reveal recurring patterns and thematic resonances, reflecting Jungian archetypes and shared subconscious imagery that emerge spontaneously across participants. Asemic Writing actively generates raw material visually, physically, or thematically woven into the performance.
Monologue
Crafting a monologue marks a transition from a deep immersion into a contextual reflection where the performer engages with their creative archive, drawing from the vast material generated during harvesting. The monologue is an exercise in curation. No new words are added; performers must work exclusively with the texts, images, sounds, and moments surfacing through previous sessions. The monologue should avoid conforming to conventional dramatic unity; it can be a field of feelings, thoughts, and images, free from linearity, causality, or narrative cohesive constraints. It is a contextual reflection of the performer's subconscious journey, a distilled articulation of inner landscapes. Once completed, these monologues are read aloud to the ensemble. This reading transforms the internal into the external, bridging the gap between personal exploration and collective witness. Additionally, the ensemble can recognize thematic resonances, recurring motifs, and subconscious interconnections across their work.
Throughout our process, we move between deep immersion in the creative moment and stepping back to perceive the work. Drawing from Jung’s Red Book repository, Pollock’s all-over painting techniques, and Stein’s Landscape Theater approach, the Panoramic Field facilitates this shift between engagement and contextualization. Immersion unlocks raw material, while contextualization reveals meaning by situating individual discoveries within the broader creative landscape where meaning emerges through relationships. Just as quantum mechanics suggests that observation influences reality, witnessing and organizing one’s creative output alters its significance. The Panoramic Field provides this reflective space, allowing performers to see their work as part of an evolving artistic process. Here, the monologue acts as a moment of synthesis where the performer recognizes their unfolding narrative's deeper, interconnected structure.
Image Theatre and Forum Theatre
Inspired by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed19, Image Theatre and Forum Theatre bridge inner exploration and external social engagement. These techniques enable performers to embody abstract concepts—such as oppression, transformation, and hope—through physical images and improvisation, shifting from verbal expression to embodied storytelling. This stage of the process marks a crucial shift in perception, transitioning from visual and linguistic modes of engagement to a more tactile and kinesthetic experience. By shifting from verbal analysis to embodied experience, we activate the brain's right hemisphere, which governs holistic thinking, spatial perception, and contextual awareness. Unlike the left-brain dominance of structured logic and linguistic reasoning, this process fosters a nonlinear, intuitive engagement with meaning. As performers move from intellectualized interpretation to full-body experience, their perception of narrative, space, and emotional resonance becomes fluid and expansive, allowing meaning to emerge organically through the body, movement, and shared spatial relationships. The transition from verbal to embodied perception fosters a more immersive and integrated understanding of theatrical composition, dissolving the boundaries between thought, emotion, and action -theatre becomes a representation of reality and an active sensory reconfiguration.
Figure 6. Image from Body Sculpting Exercise, during Virennu Facennu, a TransPerformance, Photograph taken by the author, 2022
We began introducing the actors to body sculpting. Each performer worked individually, adopting a posture representing their current emotional state. Then, in couples, they sculped their feeling on each other. Here, the intention is to introduce the actors to experience an intuitive understanding of how the body becomes a vessel for emotions, sensations, and abstract ideas. The ensemble was divided into smaller groups and tasked with creating images that reflected their project's social and thematic focus. In Virennu Facennu, the prompt was to depict "Oppressive Catania," while in Ma Solo 36?, the actors visualized "The Future Now." In the first stage, each group had four minutes to construct a still image in silence, using only their bodies to represent the Oppressive Image of their experience. Every member was required to be physically involved, ensuring a collective, embodied expression of their shared reality. In the second stage, the groups created an Ideal Image, symbolizing their envisioned future without oppression. The third stage introduced the Intermediate Image, bridging the gap between oppression and the idealized future. Unlike the first two exercises, which relied entirely on nonverbal expression, this phase allowed verbal discussion. Over 15 minutes, groups experimented with various configurations, exploring the transitional state between their oppressive and ideal images. This stage often provoked conversations about the forces influencing change, revealing the obstacles and the possibilities embedded in transformation. Once completed, these images were documented in the Shared Book.
Figure 7. Image from Image Theatre during Ma Solo 36? a TransPerformance, Photograph taken by the author, 2023
Building on their three images, each group developed an improvised short scene integrating dialogue, character relationships, and movement while maintaining the essence of their original images. These scenes were then presented to the ensemble with the introduction of Forum Theatre, an interactive component where spectators could intervene in the unfolding action. As scenes played out, actors could stop the performance at any moment, step into the roles of their peers, and propose alternative solutions to the conflicts presented. This practice, pioneered by Boal, allowed the ensemble to experience the tension between what is and what could be through embodied experimentation. The discussions that followed these interventions were engaging, as performers and observers alike grappled with the complexities of power, agency, and transformation.
Boal’s methods have traditionally been used to reveal and challenge the oppressive structures of the external world. In our adaptation, Image Theatre and Forum Theatre also serve as portals into the Inner World, allowing performers to explore the social forces shaping their realities and their subconscious responses to those forces. By engaging in this process, the ensemble learned that transformation is internal and discovered that theatre is a space of possibility where reality can be rewritten.
Three Images Workshop
Figure 8. Images from Three Images Workshop during Ma Solo 36? a TransPerformance, Photographs taken by the author, 2023
In the final phase of our exploration, dedicated to harvesting material from the Inner World, each performer selected three images from either their Asemic Writing or Image Theatre sessions. These images were then arranged in a sequence to form a narrative each performer chose to create, allowing the subconscious material to take on a form while maintaining its raw, symbolic essence. The Three Images Workshop generated additional material to enrich the Panoramic Field, expanding the collective imagery, text, and movement archive. The selected images were also compiled into a shared database, creating a dynamic reservoir from which performers could draw for further storytelling. In this exercise, actors were asked to describe their three selected images objectively, focusing purely on what they saw rather than interpreting their meaning. Interestingly, the images carried implicit symbolic significance even when approached as neutral descriptions, especially when juxtaposed with other images generated during the same session. This reinforced our understanding that meaning in theatre often emerges through the relational field of images, gestures, and subconscious associations.
By this point in our creative journey, a shared symbolic language had taken shape within the ensemble. The group cultivated an internal mythology in the Panoramic Field, a common terrain of emotions, symbols, and themes transcending individual experiences. The Three Images Workshop solidified this foundation, offering a bridge between the raw subconscious material of the Inner World and the creative process of TransPerformance, ensuring that the final work remained deeply rooted in the ensemble's lived and imagined realities.
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Figure 8. Images from Three Images Workshop experimentations, Photographs taken by the author, 2023
TransPerformance Creation Process
At the end of our exploration of the Inner World, the Panoramic Field of each project expanded to over 150 pages, filled with text, images, drawings, videos, and soundscapes we had recorded during the process. It is a vast creative platform that would form the foundation of Virennu Facennu and Ma Solo 36?. From this extensive collection, we began the distillation process, shaping the material into a performance that preserved its origins' fluidity and organic nature.
We divided the 150 pages into three distinct Cantos where the most symbolic and abstract material was assigned to Canto Tre, the realistic one formed Canto Uno, and the material that existed in a liminal space between the two was designated as Canto Due. This organization allowed for a natural progression in the work, transitioning from grounded reality to heightened symbolism, mirroring the psychological and emotional depth of the ensemble’s journey.
The ensemble was then split into three groups, each tasked with shaping one of the Canti. Their challenge was to distill an average of 7,000 words from their section into a more focused 2,500-word performance text. While they could not introduce new words, they had complete freedom to arrange, restructure, and reconfigure the existing material to create a distinct flow for their assigned Canto. In the next phase of our TransPerformance processes, we will expand our methodology to integrate better the diverse materials generated throughout the exploration. This evolution aims to ensure that the final performance is not just a textual distillation but a collapsed field of interconnected text, images, movement, video, and sound, reflecting the full depth of the ensemble’s Inner World. By the end of this phase, each Canto will have taken on its own unique identity, forming a collective performance that embodies the ensemble’s shared thematic exploration of the Inner World and the collapsed meaning of its discoveries. This evolution of the TransPerformance method ensures that the final work is an emergent composition that embraces the discovery process while crafting a layered and immersive theatrical experience, where meaning is experienced as relational, fluid, and dynamically shaped in real-time.
Conclusion: The Collective Resonance of the Inner World
Our harvesting process of the Inner World initially functioned as a deeply personal exploration, with each performer confronting their subconscious landscapes, unearthing fears, hopes, and desires that had previously seemed solitary and internal. However, a powerful realization emerged once these discoveries were shared within the Panoramic Field. These emotions and themes were not isolated experiences but resonated across the group. This recognition fostered a profound sense of connection among the performers, transforming individual introspection into shared understanding. As the ensemble members recognized their common emotional threads, the process cultivated a heightened sense of belonging, reinforcing that personal struggles, aspirations, and uncertainties are part of a larger human experience. This collective awareness generated a strong internal solidarity within the ensemble, which became the foundation for the TransPerformance process. When this cohesive ensemble interacted with the audience, the resonance of this shared experience extended beyond the performers. The performance space became more than just a stage; it evolved into a relational field where audience members could recognize fragments of their inner worlds within the unfolding theatrical experience. The immersive and participatory nature of TransPerformance allowed spectators to step into this shared emotional terrain, engaging not as passive viewers but as active participants in a communal exploration of meaning.
Notes
1. Roberto Prestigiacomo, “ProbabilisticStages,” accessed 02, 12, 2025], https://www.prestigiacomo.org/.
2. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 1995).
3. S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art: With a Critical Text and Translation of the Poetics, 4th ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1951)
4. Isaac Newton, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. Andrew Motte, 1st American ed., rev. and corrected, with a life of the author by P. W. Chittenden (New York: Daniel Adee, 1846)
5. Aristotle, Physics, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, The Internet Classics Archive, accessed 01, 20, 2025, http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/physics.html.
6. Aristotle, On the Heavens, trans. J. L. Stocks, The Internet Classics Archive, accessed 01,20, 2025, http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/heavens.html.
7. Aristotle, Poetics, 1450b
8. Newton, Principia, Scholium, I, Book I
9. Newton, Principia, Scholium, II, Book I
10. Albert Einstein, Hermann Minkowski, Meghnad Saha, and Satyendranath Bose, The Principle of Relativity: Original Papers (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1920)
11. Erwin Schrödinger, “Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik” (The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics), Naturwissenschaften 23 (1935): 807–12.
12. The concept of the "observer" in quantum physics is most closely linked to the Copenhagen interpretation, primarily formulated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the late 1920s. Key ideas were published in various papers during that time, particularly in Zeitschrift für Physik, where Heisenberg introduced the uncertainty principle in 1927. Consequently, the foundations of observer theory emerged within this context, with its earliest formal articulations appearing in publications from this period.
13. Jung, C. G. 1991. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. 2nd ed. Collected Works of C.G. Jung. London, England: Routledge.
14. See a sample of The Panoramic Field created with the Generative Process. Here is evident the visual and metaphorical impact: https://www.academia.edu/107944540/Libro_Comune_Ma_Solo_36
15. See the performance text of Virennu Facennu. The text was developed through the Generative Process. This text is comprised only by the Inner World Explorations.
16. C. G. Jung, “The Transcendent Function,” in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 8: Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 67–91.
17. C. G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus, ed. Sonu Shamdasani, trans. Mark Kyburz and John Peck (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009).
18. Jung, C. G. 1991. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. 2nd ed. Collected Works of C.G. Jung. London, England: Routledge.
19. Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. United States: Theatre Communications Group, 1985.