Towards a New Cutting Edge: Where Avant-Garde Meets Community Art

Abstract

A cursory look at different examples of activist and community-based performances in Singapore, Colombia, and more detailed analyses of two recent participatory theatre productions in the Czech Republic and The Netherlands reveal that neat categories distinguishing community art in the East and the West can not so easily be made. Drawing on the theoretical work of Miwon Kwon and Jan Cohen-Cruz and two case studies of productions involving migrants in Prague and Rotterdam, this article critically engages with Claire Bishop's all too easy dismissal of community-based art incapable of communicating the paradoxes of contemporary existence.