Beginning in the 1980s with LiFT and other festivals mainly based in continental Europe, and expanding in the 2000s to include North America, a new form of 'curated live-arts festival' responded to globalized neoliberalism, challenged the cafeteria-style programming of 'the circuit', and began to purposefully bring artists together in generative juxtapositions or collaborations rather than as signal representatives of their nations of origin. Downloading risks and responsibilities to artists-as-entrepreneurs, this model has nevertheless also transformed festival programming into a creative rather than merely administrative activity, while also imagining new roles for festivalgoers as participants and often enabling social as well as artistic experimentation to cross political and cultural as well as disciplinary borders. Finally, they find ways of exploring the inter-imbrication of the work of international guests and the life of the host city both inside and outside of traditional theatrical spaces. They tend, that is, to address local rather than tourist audiences, to engage directly with local issues and neighbourhoods, and they often exceed traditional festival temporalities.

The Under the Radar festival is the result of the politics of a time and place that were reset by 9/11. That is when the USA finally learned that it is not invulnerable at home and that its alliances in art, culture, science, and industry are fundamental to its well-being. Situated at Astor Place, a neighbourhood at the crossroad between New York’s East and West Village, Under the Radar is part of a long history of a place that maps part of the story of American immigration, architecture, urban decay and renewal, the economy, and theatre. The festival pivoted away from American exceptionalism towards the interdependence of the neo-liberal economy by accentuating transnationalism in the context of globalization. Greenwich Village’s intellectual and artistic vibrancy has a history of being in conversation with ideas and experimentation originating in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Under the Radar draws upon and adds to this legacy of place through its presentation of work from all over the world. Diversity at Under the Radar signifies ‘this is us’, not in the sense of either multiculturalism or sameness, but of an inquiry of ideas that shapes our shared human destiny.