Theatre at the Crossroads of CultureWestern culture has a long and fraught history of cultural appropriation, a history that has particular resonance within performance practice. Patrice Pavis asks what is at stake politically and aesthetically when cultures meet at the crossroads of theatre.? A series of major recent productions are analysed, including Peter Brook's Mahabharata, Cixous/Mnouchkine's Indiande, and Barba's Faust. These focus discussions on translation, appropriation, adaptation, cultural misunderstanding, and theatrical exploration. Never losing sight of the theatrical experience, Pavis confronts problems of colonialism, anthropology, and ethnography. This signals a radical movement away from the director and the word, towards the complex relationship between performance, performer, and spectator. Despite the problematic politics of cultural exchange in the theatre, interculturalism is not a one-sided process. Using the metaphor of the hourglass to discuss the transfer between source and target culture, Pavis asks what happens when the hourglass is turned upside down, when the `foreign' culture speaks for itself. |
Contents
1 TOWARD A THEORY OF CULTURE AND MISE EN SCÈNE | 1 |
A DIFFICULT BIRTH | 24 |
THE CASE OF POSTMODERN THEATRE | 47 |
4 ON THEORY AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS AND ITS LIMITED INFLUENCE ON CONTEMPORARY DRAMA WHETHER MAJORITY OR MI... | 73 |
5 THEATRE AND THE MEDIA SPECIFICITY AND INTERFERENCE | 96 |
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according action actors adaptation aesthetic anthropology artistic modeling audience Barba body Brecht Brechtian Brook character cinema Cixous classical text codification coherence Comédie Française concretization confrontation contemporary dancers deterritorialization dialogue director discourse dramatic text dramaturgical dramaturgical analysis elements Eugenio Barba example Faust fiction film foreign culture function gestural global Hélène Cixous hermeneutic historical hourglass ideological India Indian influence intercultural interpretation language language-body linguistic linked longer Mahabharata majoritarian meaning Mephisto metalanguage metatext minority mise en scène Mnouchkine modeling systems modern Molière montage narrative narratological notion odissi Paris Pavis Peter Brook play plot possible postmodern theatre practice production radio re-elaboration readability reading reception reconstructed relationship rhythm semiotics signifying signs situation of enunciation source culture source text specific spectator spectator’s stage structural target culture techniques television text and performance text’s textual Théâtre theatre translation theatrical theoretical tradition transfer Twelfth Night universal utterance visual Vitez western words