The article explores the field between amateur and experimental theatre in Slovenia in the 1970s. It draws on Peter Božič's finding that the amateur, non-professional groups consisting of self-made artists who created on the edge of amateur and professional theatres played a pivotal role in the history of the Slovenian and international theatre avant-gardes. The discussion focuses on the experimental theatre groups founded by theatre amateurs in that period (e.g., the Pupilija Ferkeverk Theatre, the Pekarna (Bakery) Theatre, the Nomenklatura (Nomenclature) group, groups founded by Tomaž Kralj, Vlado Šav, Jani Osojnik, etc.). They offered an alternative to the repertory theatres as well as to the institution of experimental theatre (in the 1970s, this was the Glej Experimental Theatre). Despite the diversity of their theatrical visions, they shared a common tendency towards not-acting. Their efforts to perform beyond representation are more closely examined by drawing on the work of Michael Kirby, who (based on examples from American stages) developed a continuum from not-acting to acting. The article analyses different categories of acting in Slovenia, which ranged from non-matrix acting through non-matrix representation, received acting and simple acting to so-called complex acting. The turn to not-acting is explored in the period between 1966 (when the first happenings took place) and the beginning of the 1980s (when the theatre innovators who sprang from the field of amateur culture started gaining acclaim, which had previously not been the case). In this, the article points out that the turn to not-acting in the Slovenian performing arts was possible precisely due to the untrained actors and theatre enthusiasts who were not active in theatre on a professional basis.
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