This presentation theorizes Sinophone independent theatre in mainland China and Taiwan as a geo-literacy project that performatively resists Eurocentric, Sinocentric, and anthropocentric epistemologies. Situating selected texts and performances by independent theatre troupes within the Inter-Asian people’s theatre movement, Dr Jaguścik takes Rossella Ferrari’s (2020) formulation of ‘transnational Chinese theatres’ as a point of departure to examine whether – and how – contemporary Sinophone independent theatre moves beyond trauma-centered frameworks to rehearse future-oriented political imaginaries. The presentation draws primarily on unpublished performance scripts and personal exchanges with members of Assignment Theatre (差事劇團) and Against Again Troupe (再据劇團) in Taipei, as well as Fire Tent Theatre Troupe (北京流火帐篷剧社) in Beijing.

Justyna Jaguścik is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language, Culture and History at the University of Bern, Switzerland. She is the co-editor of Lyrical Experiments in Sinophone Verse: Time, Space, Bodies, and Things (2025) and Re-Thinking Literary China: Essays in Honor of Andrea Riemenschnitter (De Gruyter, 2025). Her main research interests include contemporary Sinophone poetry (particularly by women writers), transmediality in Sinophone poetry, and cultural activism.