Published
The visible date attached to a public source record. This is the ordering key for the detailed event index.
P4 THEATER / 2015–2026
A chronology of becoming, not a list of premieres
This English overview connects verified dates into nine editorial phases. It distinguishes a source’s publication date, a reported event date and a later retrospective account instead of flattening them into one clock.
Two scales of time
PHASE VIEW
2015–2026
A verified editorial narrative spanning the making of the space, projects, film, theory and archival publication.
EVENT VIEW
54 dated entries
A record-level Chinese index of calls, performances, screenings, workshops, exhibitions and public responses.
- 2015–2026
- narrative span
- 9
- verified phases
- 54
- dated event records
- 12
- performance entries
from spatial construction to public archive
editorial groupings, not event claims
5 years in the detailed index
within the current event register
EVIDENCE PROTOCOL
What a date means here
The phase text is concise, but its claims remain traceable. Where the evidence is retrospective, the wording says so.
This chronology covers P4 from 2015 onward; it does not stand in for the history of Chinese theater as a whole. Read the main-site Chinese experimental theater field guide for that larger frame and the P4 Theater profile for the organization’s defined scope.
Reported
A performance, rehearsal or opening date named inside that source. It can differ from publication.
Interpreted
A phase joining several verified records. It is an editorial aid, clearly separated from the records themselves.
PHASE NARRATIVE
From space to relation
Earlier and later phases use dated corpus and publication-register evidence; the 54-entry event index currently concentrates on 2020–2024.
2015–2016
Phase 01
Making a space that could also be a work
A Beijing studio acquired in spring 2015 was rebuilt as P4 Theater. Retrospective source writing dates the main construction period from August 2015 to March 2016; the surviving public corpus then records performance and cross-media activity in 2016.
- The space was founded by Zhang Shaohua and He Fa and organised as equal black and white zones for performance, photography, watching and exchange.
- Dated public records include Shadow Counterpoint on 12 June, Open Theatre: Cross-disciplinary Lab on 9 July and Pixel Echo XIII, published 31 August for a 2 September event.
2017–2019
Phase 02
Pause, return and the prehistory of Real Image
Later source accounts describe a two-year dormant interval after the space was built, followed by He Fa’s return at the end of 2018 and a renewed investigation of photography, psychoanalysis and encounter.
- The retrospective record identifies June 2019 as the beginning of Real Image Eight and a Half.
- A 2021 programme statement says P4 began opening outward gradually in 2019; this is a retrospective claim, not a substitute for a dated event record.
2020
Phase 03
The public programme becomes dense
The detailed event index opens in May with weekly screenings and discussions. Real Image moved into public recruitment; Cocoon completed its 31 October performance; p4U was announced on 8 November as an open experimental programme.
- The event register separates a publication date from any performance date named inside the source.
- By December, Howlers on the Rooftop had entered recruitment and announced its one-time performance for 2 January 2021.
2021
Phase 04
Participation becomes infrastructure
Workshops, p4X challenges and successive p4U projects expanded the ways a person could enter P4: performer, player, witness, recorder, temporary rule-maker or audience member inside the action.
- The Middle Party’s Guide to Self-Rescue After Accusing Love of Failure was performed on 1 May after a public recruitment and rehearsal cycle.
- Kill That Rose, Duel Club and Purple Action shifted attention toward player systems, voting, provisional rules and collective consequence; Northwind Theater was recruiting by December.
2022
Phase 05
Branches travel and make their own records
Northwind Theater, Dialectical Theater and new project groups made P4 less like one programme issuing work from a centre. Productions travelled, generated interviews and returned as written argument.
- Howlers on the Rooftop announced a Hangzhou performance for 4 May.
- Porphyria moved from a July actor call toward an August premiere, while Iceberg accumulated rehearsal, field-film, performance and critical records through November.
2023
Phase 06
The theatre turns toward a film
After new calls including Sail Through Wind and Walk Out of Everyday Life, Human Surrender was publicly recruited in June. Theatre rehearsal, character testimony and camera work were drawn into one film process.
- The Last Rehearsal was announced on 14 August and publicly performed on 26 August as both a theatre event and a play within Human Surrender.
- The source called it a ‘final chapter’; the archive treats that phrase as evidence from the moment, not as the end of P4’s later writing or circulation.
2024
Phase 07
Exhibition, self-account and the afterlife of the stage
Shi Jiating’s Twin Breeding exhibition entered the public record on 8 May. In the following days, exhibition writing, personal moving images and P4’s own retrospective account widened what could count as a project trace.
- The archive records three project-linked texts between 8 and 14 May, alongside personal videos made between 2023 and 2024.
- P4 Theater: A Generative University, a Winding Maze, a Hard Drive Engraving Life was published on 12 May, followed by a first-person version on 13 May.
2025
Phase 08
Ten years become an explicit field of study
The dated publication register records P4 Theater, Ten Years on 8 March. In August, writing moved from a retrospective network account toward Actor-Generating Topology (AGT) as a named theoretical vocabulary.
- From Position to Relation: An Actor-Network Topology Study of Ten Years of P4 Practice was published on 1 August.
- The three-part Grammar of the Event / AGT sequence was published on 19 and 26 August.
2026
Phase 09
Film criticism and archive become public interfaces
A June cluster returned to Human Surrender through essays on intimacy, the camera, language, live divination and incompleteness. Shoot Self with You followed on 9 June, then an essay on the coordinates of film, theatre and documentary on 25 June.
- These dates come from the publication register; the English main site carries the edited reading layer.
- The public archive reconnects those texts to earlier project dossiers, event records, preserved images and moving-image access copies without pretending that all layers are the same kind of evidence.
Continue at record level
A phase explains a pattern; it cannot replace the source. Open the Chinese event index for dates and provenance, use project dossiers for relations, and read the main site for edited English texts.