The INDT was founded with four goals in mind:
—Bring together the community of artists who are already working in various formats of documentary theatre to exchange ideas, experiment, and reflect on the genre’s boundaries, ethics, and tools.
—Create a bridge with the next generation of artists by nurturing emerging talent and providing motivation and guidance to engage with the genre.
—Strengthen the position of contemporary documentary theatre on the international stage.
—Expand its audience by attracting people who don’t typically attend theatre. Documentary theatre shows appeal to people of diverse backgrounds because they often reflect their lived experience and draw from their communities.
Since 2020, the INDT has built a vibrant community around documentary theatre, allowing artists, researchers and academics to meet, exchange, share insights on its political and creative imprint.
The INDT kicked off in Thessaloniki, Greece, on March 10, 2020. From September 11 to 13, INDT held its first MEETING EVENT in Athens, Greece. The MEETING EVENT soon evolved into the INDT’s biannual flagship event, providing a space for artistic exchange and sociopolitical reflection through creative, educational and networking activities.
Each MEETING EVENT focuses on a different part of the world, prioritizing non-western dramaturgies.
In addition to the MEETING EVENTS, the INDT designs and implements a wide range of OTHER INITIATIVES to strengthen knowledge exchange and community building. These initiatives include workshops, open talks, stage readings, research and mapping activities, and recently, a specialized publication series of documentary theatre plays.
By bridging the gap between the world and the stage, the INDT encourages the creation of contemporary, sociopolitically engaged dramaturgies while exploring new aesthetic and narrative forms.
Documentary theatre, also known as “theatre of the real,” attempts to reflectively revisit the past or critically negotiate the present. Due to its sensitive and intimate nature, it is a demanding genre that involves an emotionally charged journey from the field to the stage and diverse ethical and methodological challenges along the way.
At the same time, there has been a growing engagement with documentary theatre in Greece and worldwide in recent years. Amid diverse “scapes of crisis”—political, financial, humanitarian, environmental, and cultural—artists have found a space to reflect on pressing, topical issues of shared concern.
This renewed interest in documentary theatre, along with its inherent challenges, has led to the formation of a shared space for reflection, communication, and creation—a vibrant network that contributes to and follows the developments of this intriguing theatre territory, which seems more relevant than ever.
