This winter’s edition of Out There marks 25 years of the annual boundary-expanding performance festival. Although each season what is considered “out there” varies, consistent is a commitment to asking the difficult questions: What is performance? What are the relationships between audience and artist? How is a good story told? How can it be told differently? As Performing Arts curator Philip Bither puts it, “It’s a safe place for unsafe ideas.”
“Way back, someone had the brilliant idea to not call it a new theater festival or a performing arts series, just Out There,” Bither explains. “It allows us to sidestep labels that these artists have been actively defying for years.”
Below are collected images from Out There’s 25 seasons:
For more Out There stories, check out what theater professionals Young Jean Lee, Mark Russell, Wendy Knox, and Jeff Bartlett have to say!