Manifesto
We want to challenge the senses of actors and public alike, forget what we know, rediscover reality, create a never-stopping movement. Our guide is simplicity, we are fed by impulse. Our growing laboratory celebrates an actor-centered theatre where experimenting, learning and sharing are intrinsic to anything we do.

Mission
• To explore new performative techniques, especially building on Anatoli Vassiliev’s pioneering work.
• To inspire audiences to approach ancient and classical texts from a different perspective.
• To build a theatre laboratory where actors (trained and untrained in the techniques) can search, experiment and develop alternative ways to do theatre, and hence privileging work in progress as opposed to fixed results abiding by predetermined or traditional theatre rules.
• To go beyond the barriers of culture, language, politics, favoring personal and collective action, for an actor led theatre.

During the course of 2012, we plan to achieve our mission through a series of groundbreaking events – from performances, to a series of workshops and live installation – (clik here for more details). We are also discussing with partners for diverse collaborations throughout the year and we are open to suggestions that will help us make our mission happen (please contact Sylvain
sylvain.malburet@gmail.com ).

Identity
Rawmatterial, founded in 2011 by actress and researcher Maria Gaitanidi, is an international collective of artists who find interest in breaking prejudices on ancient/classical texts and celebrate new writings via pioneering artistic paths. Our artists use alternative and challenging performative approaches, including inspiration from Anatoli Vassiliev’s method not seen yet in the UK. This approach is particularly unique because of the outstanding combination of artistic freedom in the form and a solid structure in its construction. The collective is led by Artistic Director Maria Gaitanidi and Producer and General Manager Sylvain Malburet. Please read more details about the team here.

To reach our goal we believe in the necessity of building a theatre laboratory where we can research and experiment as well as share techniques with other professional actors and members of the wider community. The laboratory we are building will nurture our performances and vice-versa. The ethos of such a dialogue is to ensure a strong creative process, whether it is show cased or taking place during a workshop, instead of looking to achieve a result based performance.

Since our work concentrates on the actor and the discovery of his/her ‘organicity’, any form of creative expression towards the action should be allowed, be it in any artistic form; impulses do not have a specific language, truth can stem from the most unexpected expression (singing, plasticity, cinematic movement and stimulus).

Research
Our scope is wide; we explore our artistic impulses in various fields such as:
a) Art in unexpected places with site-specific installation performances using text, movement and plastic arts.
b) Artistic responses to socio-political upheavals through specific actions.
c) Laboratory work on ritualistic practices from ancient Greek texts to philosophical material.