ABSTRACT
Since the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, concepts such as participation and assembly have been radically been updated. After a theorization of by Judith Butler, Florian Malzacher, a theorist and dramaturg working in Germany, extended the notion of Butlerian assembly to thinking about concrete and “agonistic” forms of contemporary theatre practice. Τhis paper will first introduce Malzacher’s notion of “theatre as assembly,” then go on to look into an alternative form of Malzacher’s “theatre as assembly” in Japan, where, after a complete neo-liberalization and de-politicization of the cultural sphere, “the Other,” the more humane, kind of explorations was launching. Τhe article will take up and discuss a new kind of small scale yet politically refreshing transnational performing arts festival called “Theatre Commons.” Workshops and lecture-demonstrations are the main feature of the festival, and its curator, Soma Chiaki, as a dramaturgical presenter and cultural activist, has been considered successful in creating a new kind of “theatre commons” among politicized youths.
