by Mihaela Michailov I keep hearing comments such as “we need educated viewers who understand our art” and two questions spring into my mind: educated for what, exactly? And what kind of art? If we need viewers who are tamed and educated to gobble up heaps of exclusivist art which might give them the feeling of belonging to the category of “values inaccessible to the inane multitude”, then education misses its main critical stake and becomes a sort of high-class training. Thanks, but no thanks. The radical change which theater brings to marginal groups and communities pertains to the reformation …

by Jan Cohen-Cruz[1] The very act of speaking one’s story publicly is a move toward subjecthood, toward agency, with political implications. The story circle is one of the most pervasive forms of workshopping and playbuilding in community-based performance. Although there are many variations, circles typically involve from five to twenty-five people who choose a theme and then, one by one, tell a tale. Each story is welcome no matter what its style. In accordance with the Appalachia-based Roadside Theater for example, stories might recount family history, local history, folklore, ghost lore, a personal experience, or even riddles or jokes passed …

The theme of issue 4 of G.A.P. is Art with/for Excluded Groups and it is comprised of a series of articles, interviews and theoretical texts which analyze the ways in which excluded/marginal communities, groups and individuals take part and are (re)presented in various artistic forms in the public sphere. Hence, we propose identifying and debating forms of participatory and documentary art – in Romania, as well as in the Republic of Moldova, Hungary, the US, Kenya, Uganda – which address issues confronting ignored social groups. Such socio-political acts trigger a process of translation from “the center” towards “the margins”, from …

by Mihaela Michailov Two years ago, after a performance I saw at the Țăndărică Theater, a little boy told his mother: “I’ve seen this show before”. His mother asked: “Did granny take you?”. “No”, said the little boy. “Did the school take you?” “No”. “Then you couldn’t have seen it”. “But I did”, the boy insisted. “Who did you see it with?” “With you”. Slightly confused, his mother said: “You couldn’t have seen it with me”. “Yes, I saw it last week”. “No, last week we saw something different”. After a couple of seconds, the boy said: “This was the …