Intercultural theater, also known as cross-cultural theatre, may transcend time, while mixing and matching

cultures Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...

s. Mixing and matching is the unavoidable process in the making of inner connections and the presentations of interculturalities. The majority of the works in intercultural theatre deal basically with thinking and doing around the themes, stories, pre-performative or performative concepts of Asian classical theatre or traditional performing arts forms and practices, mixing and matching the concepts or the ideas of the foreign. After the well-known success of Peter Brook's production of the Mahabharata, the trend has been evolving tremendously around the globe and many the cultural institutions of many governments have become directly interested in pushing the boundaries of intercultural senses and sensitivities by financially investing on new theatrical productions, university research, conferences and fellowships

Three major groups

Imitational theatre

The intended audience is from the same culture, or a foreign audience from a different culture and the theater group, or the actors or performers, come from the same cultural background or from very diverse foreign cultural backgrounds. The production may imitate foreign styles, the production procedures may introduce new techniques, a new style of acting or a new style of presentation for a group of actors from various cultures or the same culture, the production may include foreign languages, costumes, scenic themes and other aspects. There are many examples of intercultural theatre groups, people, and institutions who are experimenting with 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 Asian traditional theatre art forms and other Asian representational systems, in order to develop and portray their own theatre presentations using, or somehow capitalizing on the actor training systems and scenic representations belonging to those particular Asian theatres, such as the Noh theatre, Kathakali, Chinese opera etcetera. While Peter Brook was successful in his approach to a universally accepted vision of theatre-making through the Asian theatre systems --beyond the parameters of imitating different theatrical topics-- many other younger institutions or directorial approaches are kept within the parameters of imitations or comparisons, or only 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) TheatreWorks is an independent international performance company based in Singapore. It is an Institute of Public Character. It is currently led by Artistic Director, Ong Keng Sen. TheatreWorks was established in 1985 by Lim Siauw Chong, Lim Kay T ...

and

Ong Keng Sen Ong Keng Sen (born 20 November 1963; ) is a Singaporean director of the theatre group TheatreWorks, which was founded in 1985. Early life Ong Keng Sen was youngest of six children born to immigrants from Putian, China. Ong joined the drama cl ...

;

International Centre for Theatre Research The International Centre for Theatre Research, sometimes also known as The International Centre for Theatre Creation, was founded in 1970 by Peter Brook and Micheline Rozan. It is often abbreviated to the acronym CIRT, as in French the group is call ...

and

Peter Brook Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...

; and

The Bridge – Stage of the Arts The Bridge Stage of the Arts, Inc. (The Bridge) was started by its Artistic Director, Avra Petrides, in 1980;Certificate of Incorporation, is dated April 21, 1980, and signed by the Secretary of State, Basil Paterson and has produced music-theate ...

)

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 KoikeBridge Project- The MahabharataBari HochwaldThe Global Theatre ProjectThe World Theatre ProjectPeople's Theatre Project
etc.)

Sub-divisions

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 Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rzesz ...

Thomas Richards

, Robert Wilsonbr>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 ar
Richard SchechnerPhillip Zarilli
Robert Wilson, Christian DuComb Phd, Prof. Esther Kim Lee, Ellen Stewart-La MaMa, Lee Breuer-Mabou Mines, Hugh Gittens, Anne Bogart, Philip Glass etc.

Australian intercultural theatre

British intercultural theatre

Canadian intercultural theatre

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 have 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.

African intercultural theatre

Brazilian intercultural theatre

Chilean intercultural theatre

Chinese intercultural theatre

*Chinese Shakespeare *Chinese Greek Tragedy

Finnish intercultural theatre

French intercultural theatre

German intercultural theatre

Greek intercultural theatre

Hungarian intercultural theatre

Indian intercultural theatre

Iranian intercultural theatre

Irish intercultural theatre

Japanese intercultural theatre

Jewish intercultural theatre

Korean intercultural theatre

Adaptations of Shakespearian works such as 'Hamlet' with traditional Korean elements

Malaysian intercultural theatre

Mexican intercultural theatre

Singaporean 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.

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 Ancient Greek theatre was a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, was its centre, where the theatre was ...

, Forms of drama,

Twentieth-century theatre Twentieth-century theatre describes a period of great change within the theatrical culture of the 20th century, mainly in Europe and North America. There was a widespread challenge to long-established rules surrounding theatrical representation; ...

, literature, languages, translations, music, stage craft,

costume design Costume design is the creation of clothing for the overall appearance of a character or performer. Costume may refer to the style of dress particular to a nation, a class, or a period. In many cases, it may contribute to the fullness of the arti ...

acting Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode. Acting involves a broad r ...

acting techniques The following is a partial list of major acting techniques. Techniques *Classical acting is an umbrella term for a philosophy of acting that integrates the expression of the body, voice, imagination, personalizing, improvisation, external stimul ...

, props,

stage combat Stage combat, fight craft or fight choreography is a specialised technique in theatre designed to create the illusion of physical combat without causing harm to the performers. It is employed in live stage plays as well as operatic and ballet p ...

set design Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trained ...

and light design for the intercultural production.

Actors

Spectators

Contexts

Locations

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 Patrice Pavis (born 1947) was Professor for Theatre Studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England (UK), where he retired at the end of the academic year 2015/16. He has written extensively about performance, focusing his study and re ...

French-UK theatre scholar, *''
Min Tian
central academy of drama in Beijing, China *''
Rustom Bharucha
Indian theatre critic, India"Rustom Bharucha"
/ref> *''
Marcus Cheng Chye Tan
Singapore theatre scholar

References

{{Reflist

Sources

International Yearbook for Research in Arts Education 3/2015: The Wisdom of the Many – Key issues in Arts EducationIntercultural Experiential EducationMaking the Most of Intercultural EducationPerformance and interculturalism now

* ttps://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0415081548 The Intercultural Performance Reader, by Patrice Pavis on Amazon.co.uk
DRM0730 – INTERCULTURAL THEATRE

"The Steveston Noh Project"

External links

Guillaume (Willem) Brugman
Centre for Australasian theatre

Cross River wilderness CentreMaster Sim Pern YiauPatravadi Theatre
Theatrical genres Performing arts Modernist theatre Alternative theatre 20th-century theatre Cultural concepts Cultural studies