Intercultural theatre

Intercultural theater, also known as cross-cultural theatre, may transcend time, while mixing and matching cultures or subcultures. Mixing and matching is the unavoidable process in the making of inner connections and the presentations of inter-culturalities. Majority of the works in the intercultural theatre is basically about thinking and doing around the themes, stories, pre-performative or performative concepts of Asian classical theatre or traditional performing arts forms & practices mixing and matching with the concepts or the ideas of foreign. After the well-known success production of Peter Brook's Mahabharata, the trend has been tremendously evolving around the globe and many governments cultural institutions directly interested to push the boundaries of inter-cultural sense and sensitivities by financially investing for new theatrical productions, university researches, conferences and fellowships

The three major groups of intercultural theatre

Imitational theatre

Intended audience will be from the same culture or a foreign audience with different cultures and the theater group or the actors or performers come from the same cultural background or a very diverse foreign cultural backgrounds. The production may imitate foreign styles, the production procedures may introduce new techniques, style of acting or style of presentations for a group of actors from various cultures or same culture, the production may included foreign languages, costumes, scenic themes and other aspects.There are many examples of intercultural theatre groups, people and institutions who are experimenting the various levels of mixing and matching of traditional or contemporary aspects of theatre training and presentations in this type of Imitational theatre. After the global acceptance of renowned theatre director Peter Brook, many theatre directors went after behind Asian traditional theatre art forms and other Asian representational systems to develop and portray the theatre presentations utilizing or somehow capitalizing the actor training systems and scenic representations from the particular Asian theatres such as Noh theatre, Kathakali, Chinese opera etc. While Peter Brook was succeeded in his approach of universally accepted vision of theatre making through the Asian theatre systems beyond the parameters of imitating different theatrical topics, many other recent institutions or directorial approaches are tightened within the parameters of imitations or comparisons or just exchanges of physical exercises.

Adaptive theatre

There are two types of intercultural theatre within adapted theatre. One can consider "the norm" to represent what the audience of a certain culture expects/has typically been exposed to:

• Adapts to the norm - traditional style productions that have been consciously adapted to fit with the cultural expectations of the intended audience of another culture.
• Adapts away from the norm - the original culture dominates but it borrows foreign elements to enlarge the range of expression (e.g. TheatreWorks (Singapore) and Ong Keng Sen; International Centre for Theatre Research and Peter Brook; and The Bridge - Stage of the Arts)

Universal theatre

The aim of universal theatre is to be recognized and accepted by audience members from a wide range of cultural backgrounds (e.g. The Mahabharata, Peter Brook, Hiroshi Koike Bridge Project- The Mahabharata, Bari Hochwald The Global Theatre Project, The World Theatre Project, People's Theatre Project etc.)

The sub-divisions of intercultural theatre

Globalization supported in the developments of intercultural theatre in various directions and evolutions of point of views by the theatre practitioners, scholars, funders and producers(British Council, Fulbright, Ford foundation, The Rockefeller foundation) particularly using English language as the main medium of communication for knowing, acknowledging, debating, reasoning, considering, teaching, learning, writing, speaking, adapting, translating or transforming the one culture to the other culture in large contexts and in detailed micro contexts. Primarily the discourses of intercultural theatre practice developed out of the re-source influences of western theatre arts, western theoreticians and western theatre practitioners. (e.g. Eugenio Barba, Jerzy Grotowski, Thomas Richards, Peter Brook, Robert Wilson,Phillip Zarilli)

American intercultural theatre

• For many theatre cultures, American intercultural theatre has given the possibilities of new exchanges, experiments, researches and pioneer introductions of model attempts in theatre making. There are many directors, teachers or theatre artists began working with the sources of American point of views in the intercultural attempts and some of them are Richard Schechner, Phillip Zarilli, Robert Wilson,Christian DuComb Phd, Prof.Esther Kim Lee, Ellen Stewart-La MaMa, Lee Breuer-Mabou Mines, Hugh Gittens, Anne Bogart, Phillip Glass etc.

Non-Native English language speaking countries intercultural theatre

• English is the primary medium of communication in the intercultural theatre scene worldwide and American English or British English used as the mother source language to make all transactions related with theatre training, teaching and performing. Many non English countries are welcomed the English language as the official medium for the citizens and thus opened possibilities of any business. The culture is also part of business in the sense of in-coming and out-going, travelling or transforming stories, experiences, music, histories and philosophies. The dramatic theories and the acting coaching is mainly developed by the American or European masters of contemporary theatre. The non native English language speaking cultures supported the new experiences, exchanges, experiments to present the new shows.

Chinese intercultural theatre

• Chinese Shakespeare
• Chinese Greek Tragedy

Intercultural theatre criticism

• Intercultural theatre criticism is a new term that presents a collection of critical research engagements, openings, discourses, quotations about Intercultural theatre and its productions, projects, people and places, which illustrate critically the necessities and the reputations.

Intercultural theatre Directors

• Intercultural theatre director

Intercultural theatre director is a stage director/instructor specialized in the intercultural theatre field who oversees every creative aspects of occupation towards a theatre production(text based play, non-text based play, myths & stories, adaptation of a play or a devised piece of artistic work) through the medium of exchange or borrowing diverse elements from less known culture, practice mixing or collaborating with one or plural different well-known cultural elements or practices and vice versa to have quality and completeness in the realization. The intercultural director will lead the creative members of the team to achieve his/her artistic vision for the production and objectively collaborate with the various mixing elements of performance, classical drama, Forms of drama, Twentieth-century theatre, literature, languages, translations, music, stage craft, costume design, acting, acting techniques, props, stage combat, set design and light design for the intercultural production.

Scholars

• Intercultural theatre scholars are the experts working with intercultural theatre creations for several years of practical and theoretical experiences in productions, teachings, performing arts etc.

Critics

• Intercultural theatre critics are the experienced scholars who have many years of academic scholarships and direct relations with the each details of culture, civilization, practices. They are capable to inform, debate, talk, analyze and write about what commonly not presented or re-presented on the table.
• Patrice Pavis French-UK theatre scholar,
• Min Tian central academy of drama in Beijing, China
• Rustom Bharucha Indian theatre critic, India

Further reading

• Patrice Pavis. 1996 Routledge(Ed). The Intercultural Performance Reader
• Ric Knowles, Ingrid Mündel . 2009. Ethnic, Multicultural and Intercultural theatre
• Richard Schechner.1990. By means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual
• Erika Fischer-Lichte. 2014 Routledge. The Politics of Interweaving Performance Cultures
• Zhou Yun Long. 1991 Bounds of the Imagination : Intercultural Theatre Studies
• Qi Zhang. 2014(Peter Lang AG)Investigating Hong Kong English: Globalization and Identity
• Peter Eckersall and Uchino Tadashi.2004 Alternatives: Debating Theatre Culture in the Age of Con-fusion (Dramaturgies)
• Ian Watson.2002 Negotiating Cultures: Eugenio Barba and the Intercultural Debate
• Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins.2000 Routledge. Women's Intercultural Performance
• Barry Freeman.2010 University of Toronto, PhD Thesis, Toward a Post-modern Ethnography of Intercultural Theatre
• Charlotte McIvor and Matthew Spangler.2014 Staging Intercultural Ireland
• Iris Hsin-chun Tuan.2010 Intercultural Theatre: Adaptation and Representation

Sources

• International Yearbook for Research in Arts Education 3/2015: The Wisdom of the Many - Key issues in Arts Education
• Intercultural Experiential Education
• Making the Most of Intercultural Education
• Performance and interculturalism now
• Section VI: Kunst und "Globalisierung" / Gabriele Pfeiffer (Wien)
• The Intercultural Performance Reader, by Patrice Pavis on Amazon.co.uk
• DRM0730 - INTERCULTURAL THEATRE
• Into the wormhole
• "The Steveston Noh Project"

External links

• Guillaume (Willem) Brugman, Centre for Australasian theatre
• Arma Theatre, Israel
• Cross River wilderness Centre
• Master Sim Pern Yiau
• Patravadi Theatre