Our Mission
For centuries, cartographers used the Latin phase terra incognita to mark unexplored land on maps. Then, in the 1800s, humanity finished charting the surface of the Earth, stopped using terra incognita, and, with the advent of psychology, began trying to map our internal territories. Terra Incognita Theater feels that further exploration lies even deeper inside us than psychology, and so we continue to try to navigate deeper into our internal Earth, into the most obscure depths of human instinct -- our ancient essence, always rumbling in the recesses of our psyches, always underlying our more conscious lives but too far removed from daily experience. We feel that this core is the most incognita of all terra and the most urgent to explore.
We see ourselves as a blend of scientists and artistic explorers, driven both by methodical, grounded curiosity and by wild dreams of dazzling landscapes and bountiful riches. With picks and shovels, teeth and nails, we scrabble blindly in the earth, trying to dig our way towards the core, looking for life. Whatever the hell that is.
Our performers work through the Kinetic Mind Practice, developed by founding Artistic Director Polina Klimovitskaya over several decades and in which all the performers must train for at least several years before taking to the stage. The practice aims to allow our work to come from an intuitive place, so we can create that evocative atmosphere in which communion with the public can occur, free from ideas and judgments. We develop new texts and productions through research and rehearsals, often using classical text, mythology, folk legend, original text and our own stories as springboards.
Our vision is to use the company to mobilize a wave of anti-commercial art, a New Old Wave that explores and extends art beyond commercialism to its original, positive function in society – and to do this through the growth of a greater artistic community as well as our own works.
