ABSTRACT
Physical theatre is a non-cerebral form of performance, often made by artists trained in dance, mime, circus skills, clowning or music. Physical theatre may also grapple with Judith Butler's notion of gender as performative or with the implications of 'the gaze', that to look is in some measure to possess and that to watch or be watched is intrinsically pleasurable. The process of making performance is at the heart of physical theatre. Visual and physical theatre also sometimes engaged with the extreme. The term 'physical theatre' was probably coined by Lloyd Newson, who founded the DV8 company in 1986. The iconoclastic company, Frantic Assembly, founded in 1994 by directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, were another company who were dance-based, high energy and highly skilled. Spectators of postdramatic physical and visual theatre thus became kinesists, that is, they cracked the performance code and thereby derived pleasure.
