ART AND PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY: THE POETICS OF LOCATIONS

The article is focused on a new wave of interest of theatre artists in Russia in the sites where they live. These practices started in the 2010s, continuing the ideas of the 1960s situationists, who investigated the term 'psychogeography' and searched the connection between geography and the soul of the human being. These practices are also influenced by the 1960s environmental projects and site-specific experiments of American artist Richard Schechner who changed the classical theatre model. The experience of performative arts came to Russia in the 2010s when the books and articles of Schechner and others were translated and young theatre artists reopened those investigations again but according to local circumstances. Theatre projects based on the documentary researches of the local environment became very popular and interesting from the 2000s when the documentary theatre came to Russia from Great Britain. Together with theories of performance and political activism (or intervention) it changed the landscape of contemporary theatre a lot and gave us the feeling of reality.