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
Contents
- Imitational theatre
- Adaptive theatre
- Universal theatre
- The sub divisions of intercultural theatre
- American intercultural theatre
- Non Native English language speaking countries intercultural theatre
- Chinese intercultural theatre
- Intercultural theatre criticism
- Intercultural theatre Directors
- Scholars
- Critics
- References
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:
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
Non-Native English language speaking countries intercultural theatre
Chinese intercultural theatre
Intercultural theatre criticism
Intercultural theatre Directors
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.