Theater of All Possibilities (TAP) was a key part of the experimental arts and cultural movements coming out of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, and, over decades, became a kind of think tank for imaginative futures.
John Allen, Marie Harding and Kathelin Gray formed TAP in San Francisco in 1967, a time of radical experiments in social organisation. They also formed Enterprise for Developing Possibilities to implement entrepreneurial projects. The following year, their group moved to New York City while they located land to serve as a base to develop a lifestyle that combined the arts, sciences and land-based skills. In 1969, they acquired 160 acres outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, calling it Synergia Ranch. The whole-system concept of synergetics threaded throughout their subsequent history, promoting lateral thinking and active interdisciplinary feedback.
TAP held summer festivals and annual international tours, performing adaptations of classics and new, devised pieces. Green enterprises and sustainable land policies developed alongside rehearsals and performances. In the early 1970’s, Institute of Ecotechnics was formed as a partner organisation to TAP and EDP, to strengthen science and ecology in the group’s work. A division of IE was formalised, Organic Realism. Personnel, goals and dreams were linked. At the completion of international TAP tours, a core group continued focussed “eco-tours” of historical and cultural sites, also meeting culture-creators, scientists and innovators. The integration of the arts was also represented in annual IE conferences, where musicians, artists and performers participated along with scientists, adventurers and ecologists.
TAP workshops and rehearsals made use of historical research, cultural studies, improvisation, and theatrical simulations which ultimately informed the sensibility of multidisciplinary projects on the “world stage”. Theater was adopted as a practice in studios of all the IE project consultancies.
Then, and now, the position of Institute of Ecotechnics is that culture and the arts are essential for a balanced and sustainable relationship between humanity, the biosphere and technology. A deep dive into values and meaning is central to the practice of any art, and is key to aligning social morés and practices with a healthy ecology.