Alli called his work in experimental theatre
paratheatre, a term borrowed from the writings of
Jerzy Grotowski. He conducted private paratheatrical workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area (1977–1983 and 1996–2015), some of which evolved into public productions and provided the material for his films. In late 2015, he relocated to Portland to continue his work. Between 1976 and 1999, Alli wrote and directed a series of plays exploring mystical themes:
Circles (1976),
Coronation at Stillnight (1977),
The Conjunction (1978),
Chapel Perilous (1983),
Animamundi (1989), and
Hungry Ghosts of Albion (1999). Between 1992 and 2002, Alli co-curated the Nomad Film Festival, a Pacific coast touring venue featuring short experimental films and videos. After 1993, he focused on underground feature-length art films with mystical themes, such as
The Oracle (1993),
The Drivetime (1995),
Tragos (2001),
Hysteria (2002),
Under a Shipwrecked Moon (2003), and
The Greater Circulation (2005), a cinematic treatment of
Rainer Maria Rilke's
Requiem for a Friend. In 2015, he stopped making feature films to return full-time to creating intermedia ritual-based theatre works such as
Turbulence of Muses (2016),
Bardoville (2017),
Soror Mystica (2017),
Fallen Monsters (2018), and
Escape from Chapel Perilous (2018). Over the next four years, he returned to cinema with three features,
The Vanishing Field (2020),
The Alchemy of Sulphur, and
Tracer (2022). ==Writing==