The invention of paratheatre, as a concept applicable to modern performance, stems from the work of Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999), Polish avant-garde theatre director, best known for pioneering the ‘Poor Theatre’. In the 1970s, Grotowski pursued a series of investigations into paratheatre, attempting to change the relationship between spectator and spectacle. This paratheatrical research, iterations of which Grotowski called ‘Special Projects’, took place primarily in the Polish countryside, but also in other locations, including Pennsylvania.1 Participants applied, and were chosen for a certain openness to the experience, which involved living in nature, doing various exercises, some of them ritualistic, and not performing for an audience. A core aim was to free actors from artificiality, including the built environment of the theatre, roles separate from the self, and narrative and plot.2 Speaking of Grotowski and the Laboratory Theatre members, Kumiega writes, ‘The activity that encapsulated their search (from 1970– 1978) became known in time as paratheatre: formally, this related to an activity that had its roots in drama, but specifically did not result in a theatrical presentation before an audience. The terms “spectator” and “actor” lost their divisive significance, and both the action and the creation became the collective responsibility’. 3 Grotowski presented the results, which he called ‘University of Research’, in Wrocław in July of 1975, at the Theatre of Nations Festival. This paratheatrical research continued for a few years after that, and the Laboratory Theatre finally disbanded in 1984.