Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 22

poetry readings, and even an international poetry conference in ����. Indeed,
an important concept developed by the Traverse was that of an “artistic open
house” where the boundaries between different art forms and between art
and life could be broken down. In many ways, what was happening at the
Traverse in ���� was echoed by the counter-culture years later; just as the
Traverse aimed to be a total cultural experience, so the counter-culture
expressed itself as “a living experience, a total way of life” (Nelson ����). The
culmination of this ethos was The Arts Lab, set up by Haynes in London in
���� as an experiment in “art-and-life-style” that hosted multi-media events,
films, drama, and all manner of artistic experiments. In the space of the year
that it was open, the Arts Lab had “an enormous impact, capturing the spirit
of the counter-culture, presenting the first of a new generation of writers,
actors and directors who were rejecting the structures of conventional
theatre institutions” (Itzin ����).
By the end of the ����s, there were over ��� arts centers in England, Scotland,
and Wales, all modeled on Jim Haynes’ Arts Lab, which had its roots in the
Paperback, the Traverse, and the energy created around the annual festivals
in Edinburgh. Itzin (����) observes:
Edinburgh in the sixties, and on into the seventies, was an important
area of fertilisation for alternative theatre—in the annual Edinburgh
Festival with its showcasing and coming together of British and
international fringe theatre, and in particular with the Traverse
Theatre.
The Edinburgh Festivals together form an effective lens through which we
can observe and examine a hierarchical model of culture being challenged
and contested, often but not exclusively by a younger avant-garde who
questioned and undermined the divisions between “high” and “low” culture.
In this way, the festivals formed—and continue to form—a crucial site of
creative exchange. Quinn (����:���) remarked of worldwide festivals during
the ����s and ����s:
Festivals during these decades grappled with definitions of culture,
challenging accepted definitions of “high” and “low” arts and
gradually breaking down distinctions between the two. Festivals like
those at Avignon and the Fringe at Edinburgh now operationalised
this radical rethinking in their programming, their use of venues and
in the ways in which they tried to engage audiences.
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