Intercultural Performance

[Page 482]

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

In her study of intercultural performance, Erika Fischer-Lichte and her colleagues observes that the adoption of elements from foreign theater traditions often operates as an instrument to bring change in the aesthetic and sociocultural functions of one's own theater: the inclusion of foreign elements prompts rethinking and remaking of theater and enables theater to comment more critically, leveled through the foreign elements, on the immediate sociocultural issues of its society. The inclusion of foreign elements, in other words, may revitalize one's own theater and augment its artistic and critical calibers. The inclusion of foreign elements, Fischer-Lichte et al. cautions, also involves a political aspect concerning the power relationships between cultures, especially between those of the former colonizing cultures and the colonized cultures, that may affect the ways in which the foreign elements are derived. The study of intercultural performance therefore needs to heed not only its motivations and end results but also its political implications.

Regarding the process of making intercultural performance, Fischer-Lichte et al. draws on the theory of productive reception and proposes that the ways in which foreign elements are incorporated depend on one's own artistic and sociocultural needs: One chooses to receive the foreign elements in ways that would effect productive change in one's own theater and society. Patrice Pavis, in detailing the stages and factors that determine the reception and transformation of the foreign elements, develops an hourglass model in which elements of the source (foreign) culture are to pass through a series of filters before their final appearance in the target (one's own) culture. The filters, in a sense an elaboration and extension of the needs Fischer-Lichte and her colleagues identifies, include artistic filters, such as goals of the adaptors and choice of a theatrical form, and sociocultural filters, such as sociological and anthropological modeling in the target culture. Both models outline a unidirectional exchange and suggest a clear separation between foreign cultures and one's own cultures. Pavis also envisions a linear progression process through which foreign elements are gradually transformed.

Finding Pavis's model unable to accommodate alternative and more collaborative forms of intercultural exchange, Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert propose a two-way, dialogic model in which two cultural sources form a continuum, with the target (inter-)culture situated somewhere between them. The unfixed position of the target (inter-)culture is to reflect how and where the exchange process takes place; the influences of globalization, the space for negotiation, and the possibility of power disparity inform a possible multidirectional dynamics in the process of intercultural exchange.

As for the eventual outcomes of intercultural performance in relation to the understanding of foreign theater traditions and cultures, Fischer-Lichte et al. question whether such an understanding exists, because foreign elements are used as a tactical strategy toward fulfilling one's own artistic and sociocultural needs. Marvin Carlson proposes seven stages of relationship between the culturally familiar and the culturally foreign in which foreign elements may be assimilated into, blended with, or alienated from the target culture, depending on how the intercultural exchange is conducted. The foreign elements therefore may be understood in varying degrees of recognition, ranging from as an inherent part of the target culture to highly marked entities of difference. Pavis, in acknowledging the richness and variety of intercultural performance, further proposes a selection of subcategories—intercultural theater, multicultural theater, cultural collage, and so on—to differentiate further how in each case the foreign elements are understood and treated. Her definition of intercultural resembles Carlson's idea of assimilation; her concept of collage corresponds with Carlson's notion of alienation. Lo and Gilbert also use subcategories—transcultural theater, intracultural theater, and extracultural theater—to distinguish within the practice of intercultural theater. Their subcategories, however, are defined in relation to whether cultural boundaries are transcended (as in transcultural) or marked (as in intracultural and extracultural).

...