ABSTRACT
There are two simultaneous tasks that this chapter addresses: to historicise the emergence of gig theatre by reference to the histories of popular music, political activism, and theatre-making developments in the second half of the 20th century, and to define and discern dramaturgical/methodological workings of gig theatre as a form. In continuation of the themes from the preceding chapters, this chapter therefore conceptualises its work through an attempt at a ‘polyphonic historiography’ of gig theatre and by understanding the dramaturgy of gig theatre as ultimately multimodal. Gig theatre as a form is found to draw on a folkloric, anti-racist, and self-authorising heritage of post-punk, in a dramaturgical hybridisation of rock iconography, aural intersubjectivity, and postdramatic ‘framing’. Its theatre-making procedures – elicited from the example of Wildcard's Electrolyte 2018 – frequently manifest as counterpoint of various levels of content. These procedures can range from prioritising genre to prioritising alterity, and from ‘coalition’ to joyful iconoclasm. Whether or not the label of ‘gig theatre’ is applied to such forms, critical theatricalisation of popular music is evidenced as emerging across cultures: e.g. Oliver Frljić's Turbofolk (2008) in Croatia, Lola Arias's Minefield (2017) in Argentina, or Aris Biniaris's Hill 731 (2019) in Greece.
