Theatre. Research. Community Building. Southeast Asia and Beyond.
THEATRE PRODUCTION / COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS / REGIONAL AND LOCAL RESEARCH / MIGRATION / EDUCATION / CAMPAIGNS AND ADVOCY / SOUTHEAST ASIA AND BEYOND
THEATRE PRODUCTION / COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS / REGIONAL AND LOCAL RESEARCH / MIGRATION / EDUCATION / CAMPAIGNS AND ADVOCY / SOUTHEAST ASIA AND BEYOND
ATISA is a research-based theatre company that explores the intersections of theatre, research, community organising, mobilisation, and radical activism. ATISA was born in Manila, in the Philippines at the rise of the fascist Duterte-Marcos regime in 2017 and is now permanently based in London, United Kingdom.
ATISA is run by refugees, migrants, community organisers, activists, and professional theatre-makers and writers with heritage from South and Southeast Asian regions.
As a non-profit limited by guarantee company, ATISA conducts creative writing and theatre workshops for various communities in the UK and in the Southeast Asian region, and develops theatrical works from conception, writing, and redrafting, to laboratory productions.
ATISA is a playwrights’ theatre company.
Photo: The late actress Liza Schneider in UP Repertory Company and ATISA production of Light Falls Heavier in Sorrow in Manila, 2017. Photo by Alberto Bainto.
“In the Philippines, I developed a process for my creative practice called paglublob at pakikisangkot (literally translates as ‘to plunge and to engage’) as I was working with communities (and actors) in conflict with the state.
Paglublob at pakikisangkot locates the practice and the artist within the community’s pressing and specific political issue while engaging the community in the creative process from research, writing, and revisions, to public performances.
Paglublob at pakikisangkot was further developed in 2017 through a fellowship grant from the Asian Cultural Council which I tried to develop the strategy as an initial research agenda in conflict areas in Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.”
Rogelio Braga, founding Artistic Director of ATISA.
ATISA aims to create radical and entertaining theatrical works that examine contemporary human conditions, with the support of the community, based on research, and with the aim to achieve a desired political change.
Laboratory Productions
ATISA provide spaces where playwrights and theatremakers could test their new works, ideas, and projects - and failure is considered as part of the process. Laboratory productions would run for three to six shows and it provides the theatre-makers to interact with the community in developing the work-in-progress.
Community Engagements
ATISA works with community organisations such as charities, people’s organisations, professional artists, cultural workers, and activists for the development of a work-in-progress. ATISA values the belief that theatre, a communal form of artistic expression, could be a tool in organising and mobilising the community.
Theatre and Creative Writing Workshops
In cooperation with Balangiga Press, ATISA conducts playwrighting workshops for Better Living Through Creative Writing. These workshops aim not only to write a new piece of work for the Laboratory Production, but also to document the migration narratives of Filipino and other Southeast Asian migrant communities in the UK.
Campaigns and Advocacies
ATISA campaigns to end the hostile environment in the UK, regularisation of all undocumented migrants and those in the process of living in the UK, and state of freedom of expression in the Philippines. ATISA advocates for domestic workers’ rights and the rights of LGBTQ+ members of our Southeast Asian migrant communities in the UK.
Local and Regional Research Endeavours
ATISA utilises a specific methodology in theatrical research that the company is continuously developing: paglublob at pakikisangkot (to plunge and to engage) that engages the community and gathers narratives at the same time. Paglublob at pakikisangkot addresses the question of ‘who owns and controls the narratives?’.
ATISA also builds networks with local theatre companies and theatre-makers from the region that share its values and interests.
Actors Theatre Company
We are developing talents within the organisation through the Actors Theatre Company by providing regular training and workshops. Members of the Actors Theatre Company are permanent members of ATISA and they perform in all our productions. and regularly employed.
“Paglublob at pakikisangkot locates my practice and the artist within the community’s pressing and specific political issue while engaging the community in the creative process from research, and revisions, to public performances.”
