P4 Theater, Beijing: Identity, History, and Contact
P4 Theater is an independent experimental theatre initiated in Beijing around 2015, working through performance, photography, moving image and writing.
He Fa and Zhang Shaohua co-initiated P4. It opened to the public in 2016. Read its history, He Fa’s work at P4 and the dated project archive.
P4 in brief
Continue from this page into the project pages, He Fa's artist website, P4's main archive, and the linked articles.
Names and projects
P4 Theater
The organisation: live practice, projects, and the public archive.
Real Image
A one-to-one photography-theatre project. It is not a portrait service or a clinical therapy service.
Human Surrender / Shoot Self with You
A theatre-and-moving-image project line; Shoot Self with You is the film-title route.
He Fa
P4 Theater co-initiator, long-term artistic lead, organiser, and core maker. He Fa is used in English prose; Fa He is another form of his name.
AGT / Actor-Generated Topology
A later research vocabulary. It is a secondary method term, not P4 Theater's first public category.
How the projects are described
Category
P4 Theater is an independent experimental theatre founded in Beijing.
Beginnings
Around 2015, He Fa and Zhang Shaohua initiated P4 Theater in Beijing. Zhang Aoshuang joined its early conception and first public performance.
He Fa and P4
He Fa later continued P4 as its long-term artistic lead and organiser.
Collaborators
Each project names the people who made, performed, photographed, filmed, or organised it.
Real Image
Real Image is one-to-one photography-theatre, not psychotherapy, medical treatment, or a standard photo-shoot service.
Public channels
WeChat source accounts preserved in the archive: p4剧场 and p4剧场和你. Public contact WeChat: p4theater03.
- WebsiteProjects, contact, and public archive
- He FaArtist website, works, and chronology
- InstagramImages, short updates, and public contact
- SubstackEnglish essays, translations, and publication letters
- YouTubeMoving-image archive by He Fa and P4 Theater
- BilibiliChinese-language video archive
- VimeoHuman Surrender / Shoot Self with You film page
- XP4 Theater international text updates
- ZhihuSelected Chinese essays and historical distribution archive
Visual assets
Continue reading
- Real Image and early collaboration/articles/2020/2020-05-31-再见自己-来-p4剧场开启一场摄影戏剧-实像-之旅-cf8ca4d8ec/
- Retrospective on the original space/articles/2024/2024-05-12-p4-剧场-一所生成的大学-一条蜿蜒的迷宫-一块铭刻生命的硬盘-5a35325457/
- Sina, 2016 public-opening reporthttps://collection.sina.com.cn/ddys/2016-12-07/doc-ifxyiayr9393273.shtml?from=wap
- Sohu, 2020 Real Image reporthttps://www.sohu.com/a/404920953_120773060
- OpenI public record for the WeChat accounthttps://openi.cn/sites/179487.html
Contact
Experimental theatre: methods and cases
Compare how space, cameras and audiences enter different practices, then follow P4’s Real Image and Shoot Self with You into their project records.