Impact Theatre Co-operative was an experimental

theatre company Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

founded in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It was active between 1979 and 1986. The company's work was a fusion of text, music, visual and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. The company's major productions were:Stan's Cafe Theatre Company: Frequently Asked Questions
/ref> *''Ice'' (1979) *''The Undersea World of Erik Satie'' (1980) *''Certain Scenes'' (1980) *''Dämmerungsstrasse 55'' (1981) *''Useful Vices'' (1982) *''No Weapons for Mourning'' (1983) *''A Place in Europe'' (1983) *''Songs of the Clay People'' (1984) *''The Carrier Frequency'' (1985) – written with

Russell Hoban Russell Conwell Hoban (February 4, 1925 – December 13, 2011) was an American expatriate writer. His works span many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magical realism, poetry, and children's books. He lived in ...

The core members of the company were: *Pete Brooks *Richard Hawley *Tyrone Huggins *Claire MacDonald *Graeme Miller *

Steve Shill Stephen A Shill (born 1957) is a British television and film director, actor, screenwriter and television producer. Early life Shill was born in 1957 in Buckinghamshire, England. He attended Keswick Grammar School in Keswick, Cumbria, Englan ...

*Niki Johnson *Heather Ackroyd *

Hugo Burnham Hugo Hamilton Mark Burnham (born 25 March 1956) is an English musician, and drummer for the rock group Gang of Four. The band formed in 1977 at Leeds University, where Burnham was studying English Literature. Before the band signed with EMI ...

(early founding member, before returning to

Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes. The gang ...

)

Contemporary evaluations

In an interview published in 1987,

, who collaborated with Impact on ''The Carrier Frequency'', said he had responded to a question (from Fiction Magazine in 1983) about the best piece of fiction he had seen that year, by talking about Impact's ''No Weapons for Mourning''. He said in part "The distinction of ''No Weapons for Mourning'' has to do with a perceptual phenomenon of our time. ... the performance, not realistic, but hyperreal, has a syntax of image and sound, speech and movement ... These young artists effectively demonstrate that the circuitry originates not with computers but with the human mind, and it is there for survival as well as annihilation."

The legacy of Impact Theatre

Though Impact Theatre Cooperative disbanded in 1986, its creations - especially ''The Carrier Frequency'' – continue to be important in the history of devised and

physical theatre Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre," the genre's characteristic aspe ...

. Frances Babbage, writing about a symposium held in connection with Stan's Cafe's recreation of ''The Carrier Frequency'' in 1999, said "Many companies since have cited Impact as a major inspiration, with ''The Carrier Frequency'' in particular achieving almost mythic status", while Alison Oddey mentions ''The Carrier Frequency'' in her book on

devised theatre Devised theatre – frequently called collective creation – is a method of theatre-making in which the script or (if it is a predominantly physical work) performance score originates from collaborative, often improvisatory work by a performing ens ...

, ''Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook''

References

Theatre companies in Leeds Theatre companies in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1979 1979 establishments in England Organizations disestablished in 1986 1986 disestablishments in England {{UK-theat-stub