P4 Theater originated from the founder's obsession with how to capture truth. Theater serves as a container and photography serves as a method to inscribe the real existence. From the early practice of photography "Real Image" to the shooting of the final film "Human Surrender", the dense, indelible and repressed reality was summoned to the stage, and then the exposure record was engraved in the digital film.
From the construction of P4 Theater in 2015, to the move from Tiantongyuan to the Wanghua Road office in 21, P4 Theater has experienced many ups and downs, and concepts, consciousness, and attitudes are constantly adjusted and changed in practice.
The introductory article about P4 Theater is as follows (you can click to jump to the underlined articles)
P4 Theater
What is Real Image
「P4 Theater」-- Past · Present · Future · 510
p4 Chronicle | The Losers' Salon and the Losers' Alliance
P4 Theater: A generated university, a winding maze, a hard drive engraved with life
01
P4 Theater has produced a large number of drama forms, works and creative methods through many years of practice, and all of these are from open recruitment to the society. The accumulation of a large amount of experimental experience in the recruitment system has enabled p4 to maintain strong vitality.
The recruitment rules are as follows (you can click to jump to the underlined articles)
Come to P4 Theater to plant your seeds | A journey from Mystery to History
p4U Recruitment Program
P4 Theater "Real Image" Recruitment Plan
p4X Challenge Recruitment
P4 Theater "Real Image" Recruitment Plan
p4X Challenge Recruitment
Drama and Fear | "Personal History" - Dedicating Our Future
To you, me, him and her who spend every Sunday night at the screening
Recruitment | p4U Project - "Howling on the Rooftop"
p4 screening - the intersection of heart and heart
Real Image--A drama between two people, just to see you again
p4U performance audience recruitment! | Come and be the torch that lights up the fireworks of occasional sequence combinations!
Recruitment｜p4U plan - a centrist self-help guide after accusing love of failure
Recruitment | p4U Project - "Kill That Rose"
Recruitment | 3P group creator (as a witness and recorder of the eighth issue of p4U - "Kill the Rose" incident)
Refined in the experimental theater of "Final Solution", use fake death to complete a celebration of life!
Actor/Player Recruitment | Recruitment for "Duel Club" has begun!
【Purple Action Recruitment】Come and join a self-generated revolution!
Draw your most beautiful "escape line" in "Battle Royale"
Purple Action Player Recruitment | You will pass away, I will pass away, and we will live forever
Beifeng Theater Recruitment | Me and the literary giant from the drama desert
Dialectical Drama Recruitment ｜ Let drama come alive again and give birth to it in practice
Go to Hangzhou! Go to The World Question Center
Actor Recruitment | Making a big gamble with life, "Porphyria" is in progress!
Actor Recruitment｜"Love Drama" brings order to the chaos of love and drama
Recruitment | In February, "Into the Wind and Waves" begins to set sail
Recruitment | Want to go out too much? Let's "get out of the daily routine" together!
Player Recruitment | Happy Kingdom: "Seven Princes and the Strawberry Princess"
This is a recruitment copy about "Human Surrender"
It has always been p4's mission to quickly connect strangers into a close community. Rather than talking about immersive theater or environmental drama, it would be better to say that you are already in the theater from the moment you step into P4 Theater. Game and generation are the core of P4 Theater. The script is not necessarily the only one. The subtext hidden deep in everyone's heart is what p4 cherishes and protects the most.
02
P4 Theater has produced dozens of dramas, large and small, that take place in various spaces. Especially after 21 years, because we were unable to perform in the original theater for various reasons, we began to roam in parks, boxing rings, offices, office buildings, dance halls, lawns, bookstores, abandoned ruins, etc. Various environments created a more unique experience and perception. We are grateful to the kind people and partners who provided us with venues.
The resulting works are as follows (you can click to jump to the underlined articles)
P4 Theater | Shadow Counterpoint | GIF version
P4 Theater | Pixel Echo XIII
P4 Theater | Hamlet Mirror | GIF version
Come to P4 Theater! Don't be afraid! Go gaze into that dark mirror of the abyss! Go and meet the self you have never met again!
October 31st P4 Theater "Cocoon House" will be performed!
Dance Theater "Cocoon House" - When the body turns to ashes, what remains is the unreplicable soul.
The 16 days and nights of anticipation in P4 Theater - the performance of "Cocoon House"!
Cut a window in the void
"Deducing the Cocoon House in everyone's heart": See how "Cocoon House" collides with P4 Theater
Dance Theater "Cocoon House" 1 minute edited version
"The Howler on the Rooftop" Advertisement [Dream Fighting Retina]
[p4U] Mysterious performance of the play "Howler on the Rooftop", New Year's Eve carnival! Act once in a lifetime!
January 2nd! p4U plans to perform "The Howler on the Rooftop"!
p4U Project | A play reflecting on direct action
Hurt Trust Respect Suicide p4U and 3P Group
P4 Theater｜p4U plan
[p4U Performance] Who is the centrist? --The interactive and immersive drama "The Centrist's Guide to Self-Healing After Accusing Love of Failure" will be performed on May 1st!
[p4U] Immersive drama "A centrist self-help guide after the failure of love"
A specious future
【p4U】Complete self-change in the master-slave dialectic, a confession about a centrist - a little excitement and sadness mixed with exquisite rogue and naive compromise, mixed with expectation and uneasiness.
Full invoicing! The wild interactive musical "Killing That Rose" is coming!
Shenqi is too boring, entertainment is king｜Four hours on SaturdayDuel Club
I will remember you forever this night! See you in the ring!
Tomorrow, let the person you love the most "live"
Hour 1 | October 23Duel Club
Hour 2 | October 23Duel Club
Hour 3 | October 23Duel Club
Hour 4 | October 23Duel Club
Theater of Cruelty｜First Manifesto｜Aalto
Beifeng Theater Club｜Disgusting! Will you come on the first day of the new year?
Beifeng Theater Club | "Iceberg" trailer
Beifeng Theater Club | Mousetrap - an activity that seizes everything that can be caught and carries out extremely serious reflection
Beifeng Drama Club｜Can a butterfly flapping its wings create a tornado again?
Player Recruitment｜Fool! Can you still afford the killer joke? On April 1st, the final puzzle is waiting for you to reveal!
Beifeng Theater Club in Hangzhou｜Never give up on regaining the power of seeing in the landscape
Hangzhou Performance｜On May 4th, let's fall into Lake Alice together in the Tianmu
Response of the Century | Penghao Theater Wang Xiang! Come! Please shoot me! (if you have one)
Ticket opening for the premiere | Countdown to "Porphyria"... Do you want to buy the life-changing dungeon?
Porphyria's Monologue | Come, she comes, she is my moon. I thought I would escape, but no, I was obsessed with her and let me become one of her yellow hairs.
【New play】Kiss You, Kill Me | Kiss You, Kill Me - Kang Hae Joo and his one-man show
Global Private Screening | Voyeurs and Documentaries - Yun Jianhui and "Researching the Compass"
"Reshaping Social Practice"
Last Rehearsal | Human Surrender's "The Last Rehearsal"
p4 Final Chapter | The Last Rehearsal Performance | Love, Death, Human Surrender
Travel around the universe｜Become a clone of you and me in one second
Shi Jiating's Solo Exhibition｜"Reproductive" - Abandoned Tangshan Boy
The audience who come to P4 Theater are the most touching. They can see the difference in the drama generated in p4. Compared with the plays performed in the National Center for the Performing Arts - exquisite choreography and luxurious lineups, what they can see is the life state behind the non-professional actors and the courage to exist as human beings. Many viewers gradually became participants and began to play more important roles in the next play.
03
p4 has been summarizing its own methodology and summing up more possibilities through practice again and again. Methodology is the cornerstone of all actions. Integrating the theory in psychoanalysis into our drama practice can bring out more powerful power.
The methodology summarized is as follows (you can click to jump to the underlined articles)
P4 Theater | Inspirational Discovery
Love and drama | A love letter to the future
How do you know your true appearance?
Recruitment | Drama is the best and only way out for the proletarians
psychoanalysisThe path to practice must be created by oneself
P4 Theater: A generated university, a winding maze, a hard drive engraved with life
04
In the process of p4 practice and creation, we have always adhered to the absolute insistence on co-creation. Every participant comes with their own story, words and actions. p4 is a stage for co-creation and a collective force. They can freely initiate, gather, tell their stories, and use various forms of workshops to communicate and enhance the distance between each other.
Some of the participants' articles (you can click to jump to the underlined articles)
Real ImageStory｜They say
Here, there is a group of Cinderellas
To P4 Theater, to the eternal, ubiquitous photon
"Cocoon House" Behind the Scenes Talk (Part 1) - Recording the existence of "I" with P4 Theater
"Cocoon House" Behind the Scenes Talk (Part 2) - Recording the existence of "I" with P4 Theater
"Cocoon House" Behind the Scenes Talk (Part 3) - Recording the existence of "I" with P4 Theater
"Cocoon House" Behind the Scenes Talk (Part 4) - Recording the existence of "I" with P4 Theater
Let yourself return to yourself - feel the nerve impulses that connect you and me
Let's dream together
Why I hate "The Howler on the Rooftop"
Am I a reporter (1) | "The Howler on the Rooftop" record
Am I a reporter (2) | "The Howler on the Rooftop" record
The defense of suffering - "Liu Du" in my heart
【P4 Theater】When Mary Shelley met the howler on the rooftop
Little red deer and her red rose
Their Words - About "The Howler on the Rooftop"
I have nothing to say about "The Howler"
Am I a reporter (3) | "The Howler on the Rooftop" actor training record
p4U interview | This "drama" is born because of every talent
p4U Interview | "When I got the script, no one expected its final presentation."
p4U interview | "I just thought today that it's over. Do you understand?"
p4U interview | Happening, experiencing, having
p4U interview | "What the audience didn't expect, what the actors didn't expect, and what everyone expected"
p4U interview | Seventy-seven-year-old girl
p4U Interview | "If there is no record, it really disappeared"
A donkey's lips speak to a horse's mouth - "Conversation" between the creators of "The Howler on the Rooftop"
My Story｜Diary and Nosebleeds
[p4 Weekly Screening Discussion] Three-person discussion on Milo Rau's work "Retelling: Murder on the Street Corner"
Countdown to 3 days | About those, monologue
Life Highlights | How is a drama born?
3P Group | Kill! Kill! Kill! Roses!
3P Group | I'll wait for you at Huangquan Road
3P Group | About Professor C's projection and interpretation
210605 | Farewell letter: My reflection looks beautiful under the red light
Beifeng Theater Club｜Parking fee is 30 yuan. Toll fee is 20 yuan.
Beifeng Theater Club｜There is actually a traffic jam on Huangquan Road
Beifeng Theater Club | Hippies and 🪣
Beifeng Drama Club｜I desecrated his dignity as a character
Bei Feng Editorial｜Tear off my name - An unawakened dream is scarier than a broken dream.
Beifeng Editorial | Essays about the drama club and "Iceberg"
Audience criticism｜You must love specific people, the truth belongs to all mankind
Beifeng Editorial｜How can a smart person understand the burning in a fool's bones...
Audience Criticism｜Criticism of "Iceberg" by Audience No. 15
A manuscript that has not been sent yet
Beifeng Theater Club｜All the frames have collapsed
Dialogue 02｜April Fool's Day Night
Observation Diary | The light and darkness of the male protagonist in "Iceberg"
Anonymous submission | On cheap struggles and powerless moans
510 Essay | Just like your dad!!!
Communist Script | Straight Line
Communist Script | Male Photographer
Communist script | "The Virgin"
Communist script | Philomela is a girl
Communist Script | "Private Diary"
The wind and waves | I can't push away, can't see clearly, can't move
Rejected Submission | "Growing Types of Anxiety in Neuroses and Psychoses"
[Escape Line] "Please look into my eyes, don't change direction" - written to Compass
Communist script | Anti-chatgpt manifesto
Asylum | Asylum / Mental Hospital / Asylum / Home
What is a "school" | An essay--To EPSpsychoanalysisXingzhi School
Out of the Analysis Room | The Sublime of psychoanalysis
Art Performance | The beginning and end of "Human Surrender" - Will aliens come again?
Human Surrender | This is the final rehearsal! It's true! It's all true!
Human Surrender | Let me be a whale, I have too little, too little
Human Surrender A | …and then you became a little girl again…
Human Surrender R | "Beijing No. 1 Experiment"
Human Surrender S | Everything is a new dimension
Human Surrender K | People with torn eardrums
Human Surrender D | Do it again
Comments on "The Last Rehearsal"｜Start telling--Wang Yanan
Human Surrender｜I disappeared - after performing "The Last Rehearsal"
Communist Script | Diary of a Prostitute - Answers
Alone Declaration｜Let's do it again: "Fire at me and fire at you"
Some interviews during the epidemic
Self-Material Project | The dream that cannot be castrated
Self-Material Project | "History of Youth Violence in Tangshan" 01
Self-Material Project | "Tangshan Boy - History of Family Suffering" 02
Communist Script | "Song of Traveling"
Self-Material Project｜"Tangshan Boy - Dream About Mother" 03
Self-Material Project | "Tangshan Boy - The Artist's Final Chapter" 04
The semantics of "Reproduction": "Sketching" that is loyal to the object has never existed, only the infinite reproduction of narcissism will last forever
p4 Contribution｜Poetics of Fangs: Preliminary Explanation of Dark Conceptual Theory｜Jacob Reber
The concept of participants is vague. They can be audiences, actors, critics, directors, screenwriters, organizers, food providers, photographers, people who post barrages, people who complain on Weibo, etc. They are all involved in this collective event, stirring and fermenting, waiting for more people to participate and enter.
05
It is not modest to say that P4 Theater is the incubation base of underground theater in Beijing. Especially during the most closed days from 19 to 23, p4 was still supporting and encouraging those who wanted to perform but did not have any resources or space. p4 Let everyone know that acting is not difficult, nor does it have to be in a luxurious and elegant hall. Theater belongs to everyone. Co-creation based on equality and mutual respect is the origin of creation. We can speak freely wherever we go to call for our future.
Dramas initiated by some of the participants (you can click to jump to the underlined articles)
You are invited to build a theatrical public toilet - Recruitment of creators of "Spiral Staircase"
Xiuxiu's first invitation | Party on the eve of Qingming Festival!
Recruiting actors | "The Glass Menagerie" is here~
"Why are you still doing independent drama when you are so depressed?"
Always Prepare | "Animal Farm" at "510 Cafe"
"Common Festival" 5.4 Let's run wild on the lawn!
Recruitment｜510 community invitation letter
Drama Recruitment | Cast and crew recruitment for "Let Time Pass" has started!
[101 Theater Company] Actor Recruitment | Bump your head and bleed, break through the wall of meaning, and burn the corpse!
Script Reading RecruitmentSynesthesia Drama "Encounter" Creation and Production Collision - First Issue (Offline)
Recruitment | "Meat Grinder" is coming
Theater Experience Activities | Time and Space Hub
Meat Grinder Performance｜The party has begun, please dress up and attend
Performance and theater | How should I be with you?
RecruitmentPlan - "Four Eyes" four-act play
Drama Workshop Recruitment | The Eurydice Project
Recruitment of co-creators | ['Solo and Drama' Workshop]
Co-Creation Recruitment | Let's compile the daily lives of ordinary people in China for two thousand years
Billing | Experimental Drama "Four Eyes" Exchange Meeting
Recruitment | "Killing Mother" Drama Salon
New Play Exchange | "The Old Sun Rises on a New Day"
Kingdom of Happiness | This Saturday, the statue event will destroy the big mask
About burning the moon, or what love is, or the illusion of fragmentation and wholeness
Po Yue drama ticketing
"Broken Moon" Performance | Life drama? Open relationship? Me and you? Broken the illusion, or burned the damn moon?
Performance | Octagon Counter | Looking for Actors
2.2-2.4 "Octagonal counter" at the night construction site--Glorious Infrastructure Project @Groundless Factory
Ticketing for the performance / After I smashed my brain...
Salon Opening | "4.48 Mental Breakdown"
In recent years, more and more independent theater troupes have been born. Each of them adheres to their own temperament and blooms their own brilliance. Drama is a part of life and a means of liberating people, rather than locking themselves in a cage and making them prisoners.
06
The workshop is the smallest unit of drama. Five or six people can start to perform their own field. p4 Everyone is encouraged to run their own workshop to try and do something with the people who come to visit. Simple, relaxed, impromptu and serious, the workshop is the soil that activates creativity and builds a bridge of communication between people.
Workshops organized by some of the participants
"Recovering the Lost Feeling" workshop is recruiting
Embrace imagination | Improvisation workshop recruitment
Jump out of a plane without a parachute | Improvisational workshop recruitment
Magical Girl's Tea PartySpiritual Awakening Workshop Recruitment
p4 Screening of Sunday Painting Therapy - Screening on Paper
The writing of "p4 Art Therapy" is the beginning of art therapy, and the answers are inadvertently projected on the paper.
Let us use art to detoxify life [p4 projection on paper (art therapy)]
p4 Screening | Winter Special Edition - Fire Screening
Little Red Deer Series - Night Talk Recruitment on Stage
Who said salons are just for chatting?
We are all "Friday"Workshop Recruitment
Improvisational actor experience class
How to eat a banana? | p4X Workshop (Sunday)
Meeting you, seeing myself｜Salon Recruitment
"Scolding the Audience"Drama Reading Club Recruitment
Everything Can DanceWorkshop Recruitment
Breaking the Fourth Wall｜Forum Theater Actor Recruitment
May 2nd | Come and participate in an exciting Doomsday Judgment!
Workshop Recruitment｜Bring your story to interpret your story
Nexus Drama Creation Laboratory x P4 Theater｜The free collision of text and body in the theater, liberating the shackles of creation
Audience Recruitment | Purple Action | In the post-world, is childbirth my freedom?!
Beifeng Drama Club｜Drama reading, recruiting 10 people
Purple Action｜This Sunday, the wormhole has opened, meet your other clone
Purple Action | This Sunday WeChat Group Theater Let's become women together!
Purple Action | This Sunday WeChat Group Theater: Confession Room
Drama Recruitment | The reflection before death, the depression of not being able to die generously.
Improvisational Theater | Let's break up again!
Improvisational Theater | Love to the death! The unknown will always penetrate you!
Purple Action｜Become the Crazy County Twelve this Sunday
Improvisational Theater | Love harder! How far you go depends on how powerful you are and how deep you explore.
Talk to me | This is Rhode Island, jump right here
Friday online street dance｜You have to dance even if you are in quarantine! OG will take you off as usual!
Close-up magic｜This Saturday, let your eyes penetrate the soul barrier
Valentine's Day, August 4th | Let a performance re-celebrate our love - "Extroverted Monologue"
Classic Drama Workshop | Let "Love" re-interpret us
Go to bed at ten o'clock X P4 Theater | Dream Chapter 7 Workshop
Saturday Party | You are invited to join the one-eared black cat Sheriff's airship pep rally!
Offline Seminar | Split-Guattari Seminar Lecture 2: Territorialization and Deterritorialization Subjects
Sunday activities | Mini market, blind box of used items, 10% off sale, fake high-end market, real activities, 1 yuan admission, 0 stall fee.
Thursday Seminar | Guattaripsychoanalysis Third Seminar: Body Without Organs (BwO) - Flow
Thursday Seminar | The Mother in psychoanalysis - Guattaripsychoanalysis Seminar Clinical Extra
Thursday Seminar | Laborde and the Ideal Man - Guattaripsychoanalysis Seminar No. 4
Thursday Workshop | Mother! psychoanalysis in Chengdu
Saturday Free Salon | Feel the unconscious wind together
Kingdom of Happiness | May Day Seven Days of Fun, come and make dolls together!
Thursday Seminar | Body and Flesh in Lacan psychoanalysis - Dialogue with Lacan, Derrida and Guattari
Film Screening and Exchange | "Satan Tango" Official Recruitment
Tuesday Reading Club | "The Rhetoric of Myth" by Roland Barthes, recruitment of reading group members
Christmas Eve Live | Come and experience a masked dream for yourself!
New Year's Day scene｜16-year-old noise genius takes you into a new dimension
p4 Exhibition | "Shit Family" - Abandoned Tangshan Youth
p4 I have held hundreds of workshops, large and small, and people filled each space with love. We can be who we want to be. Free to be, not defined by others.
In the ten years of P4 Theater, it was the visits of tens of thousands of people that formed this concept. Without these friends, this name would be a castle in the void. It is the passage to the impossible that we use our actions to build, about love, about loss, about pain, about all the reasons that make us have to live.
Records are the reason for the existence of P4 Theater. We record almost all the stories that happen in the theater, from the nervous anticipation when people just step through the door, to the red-faced arguments during rehearsals, to the laughter and revelry and tears after the performance. All dramas are not only on the stage, but also off the stage.
p4 turns the camera into a ghost wandering around, frozen in the moment when life collides.
The trinity of movies, dramas and documentaries is the ultimate direction of p4. In the practice of "Human Surrender", truth and falsehood began to be confused and escaped, actors, roles and desires began to intertwine and entangle. The photographer is no longer a third party spectator, and the relationship between spectators and performances has long been shattered by frequent separation of the object's position. I call it a desperate situation movie - an emotional tremor that has to be faced at close range, a kind of reality under the dramatic performance, a simple, simple and pure presentation, and a release under absolute trust. This is also what P4 Theater has taught me over the years, and it is the most real thing after rehearsal after rehearsal.
In ten years, I went from 25 to 35. Because of the theater, my life was put on a roller coaster, tossing, spinning, sinking, and flying. It forced me to change from an INTP to an ENFP, and I began to learn to cry, yell loudly, be hysterical, and express myself bravely. In real life, there are always countless dilemmas that I have to compromise or escape from. Maybe I put them in a play so that my embarrassing fate can also have a highlight moment, and I long for the fragments of this image to be witnessed in the future.
Finally, here is the link to watch the full version of the movie "Human Surrender" (requires scientific Internet access). Thank you to everyone who supports P4 Theater to get to this day. Let us continue to move forward together and fight for our dreams and love to the end.
https://vimeo.com/934438119
Password 1234
Desperate Film Manifesto-Toward a Life of Self-Recursion
when i
me
I had to make the last sound, at the moment of life and death, point the camera at my head and press the shooting button.
I must put all my experiences, fantasies, experiences, feelings, and perceptions into the movie.
I don't know and I don't guide, what will happen in the next second, we rehearse, plan, and practice the day that will inevitably happen.
I love you as much as I hate you.
The universe, time and space, me and you.
Movies, making movies
Retina, detachment
stay, be forgotten
The sound is very noisy
Beside you, breathing
Whispering, in the dark.
What I hate most is objectivity, pretending to be in control of everything
Crossing that extreme point, my pupils have turned the world upside down. I am falling and trembling with you.
Meteors disappearing from the sky and falling, artificial fireworks imitate eternal marks.
It will always rise out of the cracks, dropping all expectations into the air.
Either throw it up or abandon it, put it in your arms and listen to the echo of the abyss.
I cannot persevere in the bizarre but lament in the calm
Short circuit and idling, ease or escape
Being, nothingness, madmen and idiots
Now, you and I are engraved on the eternal film
Force out the soul, drain the body, and flow into the world.