Epskamp. Intercultural Puzzles, Schechner...

Intercultural Puzzles. Richard Schechner and the Anthropology of Theatre in the 20thCenturyAuthor(s): Kees EpskampSource: Anthropos, Bd. 98, H. 2. (2003), pp. 499-509Published by: Anthropos InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40467338 .

Accessed: 21/09/2013 15:46

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Anthropos Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Anthropos.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.118.88.48 on Sat, 21 Sep 2013 15:46:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=anthroposinst

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40467338?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


i Anthropos 2 98.2003: 499-509 ^

Intercultural Puzzles Richard Schechner and the Anthropology of Theatre in the 20th Century

Kees Epskamp

Abstract. - The article focuses on the history of the early work (1969-1985) of Richard Schechner, its significance for the development of the anthropology of performing arts, and his present social critique on the changing politics of culture since the end of the 1980s. In close collaboration with Victor Turner he developed an anthropology of performing arts during the seventies and the eighties. From the mid-1980s, Schechner started to show interest in interculturalism. He is of the opinion that sharing culture turns out to be more important than sharing one and the same political system. This view was strengthened during the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the early 2000s by the breakdown of the Twin Towers. Unique about Schechner is the fact that apart from his scholarly and editorial work he is well-known as a theatre director. [Anthropology of performing arts, Richard Schechner, Victor Turner, structuralism and postmodernism, globalization, ideological systems, arts and politics, intercultural communication]

Kees Epskamp studied Social Anthropology at Leiden Univer- sity and was awarded a Ph.D. in Political and Cultural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam in 1989. He was related as consultant to the Utrecht School of the Arts (1994-2002) and external examiner of the M.A. course Theatre for Development at King Alfred's University College (2000-2004). He is coordi- nator of World Heritage in the National UNESCO Commission (NATCOM) of the Netherlands. His current field of interests is theatre anthropology, performing arts, and intangible heritage. - Publications: Theatre in Search of Social Change. The Relative Significance of Different Theatrical Approaches (The Hague 1989) and several articles on theatre anthropology.

One of the first researchers who dared to speak of theatre and "anthropology of theatre" was Richard Schechner, an American scholar of performance studies. At present he teaches performing studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York Uni- versity. Besides his academic career, Schechner' s

extra-academic work in the field of performing arts is also of importance to the development of his ideas in the realm of anthropological studies of theatre.

In 1980 he paid a visit to Mickery Theatre in Amsterdam to deliver a lecture on the rise and fall of the (American) avant-garde. In 1998 Richard Schechner was invited a second time to present in the Netherlands a previsionary lecture. The PassePartout Foundation invited him to deliver the 3rd International Lecture in Performing Arts (ILPA) in Utrecht. During this event an exchange of ideas took place between Schechner, students, theatre producers, and a theatre-minded Dutch audience.

The motive for PassePartout to invite Richard Schechner to the Netherlands was at that time an article he published during the mid-nineties in The UNESCO-Courier (1997), a magazine with a worldwide circulation. In this article he in- quisitively glanced across the threshold of the millennium into the 21st century, yet to com- mence.

Schechner has published this kind of evalua- tive discourses at more than one occasion in the past. In his 1980-lecture in Amsterdam he had used defeatist terms regarding the "end of the avantgarde" (1980). In his view, with the arrival of the postmodernism during the seventies of the last century, the humanistic progressive thinking dominating Europe and America from the Enlight- enment onwards, disappeared. Schechner did not, however, reject postmodernism. Instead, he asked



500 Kees Epskamp

what kind of theatre, performance, and world could be made in terms of postmodernism.

It is this combination of critical political discourse and his continuing interest in the anthropology of performing arts, which makes him a unique scholar in the field of performance studies. This article is meant to be an introduction to his early work (1969-1985) in theatre anthropology and his present social critique as evolved out of his interest into the changing politics of culture from the 1990s onwards.1

Audience Participation

Apart from his editorial work Schechner was well- known on the practical performing level. For the unfolding of this discourse, it is clarifying to pay some attention to this here. In 1965 Schechner - along with painter Franklin Adams and composer Paul Epstein - founded the New Orleans Group. (The three men were on the faculty of Tulane University.) Under the auspices of NOG, in May 1967, Schechner directed the first American "environmental theatre" work to use audience participation, a production of Eugene Ionesco' s "Victims of Duty." In September 1967, Schechner moved to New York where shortly thereafter he founded "The Performance Group" (TPG). The group was able to purchase its own performance space on Wooster Street, New York, which was named "The Performing Garage." In this former metal works factory, Schechner with TPG staged ambitious environmental theatre productions. Schechner re- mained the artistic director of TPG until 1980. The Group then became the "Wooster Group" - which still is headquartered in The Performing Garage.

It was a time during which theatre practitioners sought to strip the theatre of the yoke of "middle- class" values in the realm of art and culture. A first characteristic of making theatre at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies is the fact that theatre should be made accessible and, above all, have a vision. If you wanted to familiarize the man in the street with theatre, you had to make theatre on the most varied of public locations: in

a metro hall, a stock exchange building, a show window, a street, or a swimming pool. In short, art as part of daily life as it is with "other" cultures outside our Euro- American cultural sphere.

Hence, theatre makers became aware of the various environments to play in and of the way to use the spatial opportunities the setting offered for staging the play. "Environmental theatre" became a slogan.2 Moreover, in a number of performances such as "Dionysus in 69," "Commune," "The Tooth of Crime," "Mother Courage and Her Children," and "Oedipus" Schechner and his group introduced to the public, every time in a new way, the garage in which they worked and played. The entire space - where the performance took place, where the audience observed or participated - was totally rebuilt for each production.

A second characteristic of making theatre during this period was to strive at audience participation. This was quite normal with regard to non- Western forms of theatre and genres, too. In that time, experimental theatre makers were leaving the traditional proscenium playhouses. In the "off-off," small-scale theatres and in projects on location the public was seated on the players' lip. Looking at "framed pictures" was no longer the case. Going to a theatre meant unrest and action. You were often directly addressed, even invited to participate. This was the case of the TPG production "Dionysus in 69." In this piece in due course all the actors stripped to the skin and invited the audience to take off their clothes, too.

This adaptation of the ancient Greek drama "The Bacchants" by Euripides suited scenes in the nude because of the orgies related to the cult of Dionysus. For Schechner nudity here meant not only vulnerability, but also equality. Fine feathers make fine birds and thus the difference in status between actors and members of the audience. Without clothes one experienced a shared "ritual initiation." Other TPG productions also used various kinds of audience participation. In "Commune" spectators were asked to "stand in" as Vietnamese villagers. In "Mother Courage" the actors served a full supper to spectators as part of Courage's canteen.

This brings us to the third characteristic of making theatre during that period: the collective way of working. Actors and directors experimented at making their own plays and performances, inde-

1 The title of this article is more or less similar to the title of the booklet in which this text has been published in Dutch, i.e., "Interculturele puzzels. Richard Schechner en het theater in de 21e eeuw," published by PassePartout Foundation (Utrecht). Editorial comments on the contents of this article made by Richard Schechner himself in July 2002 - for which I am very grateful to him - and a final check by him on the facts contained in this overview on his work, have been integrated in the text.

2 At present the term "environmental" is mainly associated with responsible ecosystems and used by the environmental movement. For this reason Schechner no longer speaks of "enviromental theatre" but of "site-specific theatre."

Anthropos 98.2003



Intercultural Puzzles 501

pendent of the standing literary tradition. In that context Schechner served as a companion of a more or less "collective working process" from which performances developed. This fitted completely in the line of the antiauthoritarian philosophy, the aversion against leadership, the advocate of communal life, work, and administration. It was a time of shared participation in terms of authority and management within each institutional organization, albeit a factory, an office, a university, a jail, a theatre group, or a hospital. These thoughts kept TPG occupied. Within the group communality was strived at. And consequently this was also done when mixing with the audience. At those moments one strived at a communal experience, too.

Passion for the Exotic

These three characteristics of practising theatre needed a "philosophy," a vision in which social tendencies of that time as well as the views on making theatre could be integrated. Such a conclu- sive view was not to be found in the mainstream of Western society. Therefore, a renewed historic interest concerning the "dark" ages of European history, the history not laid down in court archives and clerical records, came in to being.

At the end of the sixties a new wave of interest arose in cultures outside the North Atlantic world, too. New decolonized countries were often in the news due to the severing of colonial ties and through the recently acquired independency. Moreover, one did not have to read only about these cultures. Images from those countries entered the living room directly thanks to television. In addition, it finally became "financially feasible" to go on an "expedition" yourself, albeit for the average American only across the Mexican border.

The world was in motion. Performances were not tied to playhouses anymore. In Latin America and the Philippines one would come across theatre performances in churches, just like during the European Middle Ages, or dance and music were performed in the square in front of the church. In Asia ritual and theatrical performances inter- mingled at temple sites. Theatre appeared to be completely embedded in local social life. In Africa theatrical performances would end in elaborate dance parties. Be it natural disasters (drought), disasters in the community (war) or human life (death), or joyful facts such as a harvest, a peace treaty, a marriage, as soon as there was something to celebrate or to be sad about, music and dance

filled the air to celebrate joy, lament grief, or commemorate disaster.

The performances were a celebration for the actors as well as the public and could take place in whatever environment. The audience often spontaneously took part in the performance. The audience was active, either applauding, as a supernumerary in mass scenes or a sidekick stepping before the footlight himself by dancing or telling a story. Theatre worked "catching" here and it was a collective experience.

This was exactly what one was looking for at the end of the sixties. At that time Schechner' s first book "Public Domain" (1969) appeared - a collection of essays in which he critically reviews the American theatre system as it evolved during the fifties and early sixties. He also asks himself out loud where "homo ludens" stays in the views on acting expressed by great directors such as Stanislavsky and Brecht. He then takes a close look at his own work and development of the second half of the sixties and owns up to the fact that he cannot come to terms with either the poetics of Aristotle nor with the literary ideas of exponents expressed by the "New Criticism" to explain how he looks at theatre and performing arts. Schechner summed up his practical work in the theatre to that time in his next book, "Environmental Theatre" published in 1973.

Theatre according to Schechner is all about spoken language ("speech acts") mutually con- nected to make up an enigma which enchants you and from which you cannot keep your eyes. He sees nothing literary in this. It must be considered something quite normal to people making up an illiterate society. According to Schech- ner (1969: 77-79), this has been clearly proven by Lévi-Strauss in his structural analyses of myths disseminated and handed down orally, by means of a "performance." Lévi-Strauss' s approach appeals to Schechner, because:

Structuralism is a analytic method operating from concrete examples. It makes no difference between form and contents. The structure is the composition of the contents - and these arrangements can in many shapes and at the same time be present in a single work of art. [. . .] Structuralism is suitable for the theatre because it elaborates upon systems of transformations, transactions and interaction: the scenic language of a performance" (Schechner 1969: 105).

According to Schechner (1969: 237) the same goes for ritual. In his view, the difference between ritual and theatre lies more in a functional difference within social life, the difference between belief

Anthropos 98.2003



502 Kees Epskamp

and entertainment, between "believing" and "make believe" than in the credibility and possibility to repeat the ritual or theatrical performance. Hence, it stands to reason that Schechner had no (moral or else ethical) problems basing the principle, the "birth ritual" of "Dionysus in 69," upon a ritual of the Asmat people of West Irian, New Guinea, and also drawing on a "cycle play" of the Orokolo of Micronesia.

The Explorer

At the end of the sixties early seventies, Schechner and his TPG thus belonged to a disputed avantgarde. He could not remain behind intellectually either. In the course of the years, his own diary notes returned in the articles and books he wrote. To recall Lévi-Strauss' s terminology, Schechner at that moment turns out to be a true bricoleur who links his intellectual capacities to his practical efforts to bring various kinds of products into the market. It makes no difference to him if this is by means of performances or books. As long as he is heard, as long as he has a voice.

However, he departs from the "science of the concrete" at the beginning of the seventies. Instead of translating knowledge from books about exotic peoples into a direct usability in his performances, the moment arrives to become acquainted with the theatre on location. In 1971, he visited In- dia together with his wife, (at the time) actress Joan Macintosh, one of the founding members of TPG.

In 1972, Schechner and Macintosh briefly wit- nessed several rituals and a so-called sing-sing with the Tsembaga in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. This "field trip" coming after a more extended stay in India was mainly meant as a way to experience new impressions, but hardly enough for further, more extensive fieldwork. During this period Schechner and Macintosh spent almost five months in South and Southeast Asia, Java and Bali, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan.

In 1976, TPG toured India with their "Mother Courage." In a Brecht-loving nation such as India this presentation did not go down well everywhere - however, for the most part the Indians were very receptive to this environmental theatre approach to Brecht. It also afforded Schechner and other members of TPG to renew and deepen their relationship with many Indian theatre workers, including Badal Sircar, Shyamanand Jalan, Ebrahim Alkazi, and Nissar and Amal Allana. Schechner also saw for the first time portions of the thirty-one

day enactment of the "Ramcaritmanas" ("Rama- yana"), the Rãmlílã, that was to occupy him for the next quarter century. In order to complete his research he visited Ramnagar across the Ganga river from Varanasi (Banaras) a number of times to do additional fieldwork. He most recently attended the Rãmfflã in 2000.

In New York, however, with its ample theatric offerings, Schechner also visited and studied Japanese, Chinese, or Korean theatre genres, he spoke with Buddhist monks, Islamic dervishes, and Indian Kathakali dancers (after having studied in a practical way, as a student, the basic Kathakali training at the Kalamandalam in Cheruthuruthy, Kerala in 1976). He had already met with the rituals of the North American Indians during visits to their tribal lands in Arizona. His interest went out to both the powwows of the Prairie Indians as to the Waehma (Easter) festivities of the Yaquis in Arizona near the Mexican border.

Especially his analyses of the Rãmlílã festival proved that the researcher Schechner liked to look at this communal event through anthropological glasses (1983:151-211). He described and ana- lyzed the entirety as a play of oppositions and transformations. Presiding over the extravaganza celebrating the god-king Rama is the Maharaja of Banaras, seated on an elephant. However, even higher than he, the giant puppets representing the multitude of deities and demons show off, while beneath them actors perform a divine play and the spectators representing the common people participate and worship a season, when the Hindu gods are actually believed to be present incarnate.

Schechner is spellbound by this thirty-one daylong performance, by the grand narrative's structure which tells the story of Rama's great war against the demon king Rävana in order to recover SM, the woman-goddess, Rãvana has kidnapped. The grand narrative is broken into 30 separate daily episodes physically performed throughout the many and varied environments of Ramna- gar. For Schechner - as for the thousands of Indians present - story and reality become inter- mingled when the sound of the chanted strophes from the Rãmacaritmãnas, Tulsidas's 16th-century Hindi version of Valmïki's more ancient Sanskrit "Rãmãyana," is followed by the spoken dialogues of the actors portraying the many characters of the story. During one month a myth comes to life and play and everyday reality mix. The multitudes celebrate the physical presence of the gods amidst them, in their view, playing out the story they know so well. For the Homo Indiens these con-

Anthropos 98.2003




tradictions - there are, of course, many more - are not experienced as contradictory.

Even Scheduler's interest in the environment of the setting is well dealt while studying this many daylong festivity. Indeed, each day a new episode takes place at a new location in the city of Ramnagar. Sometimes one plays against the natural backdrop of ancient parts of the city, then again a place of historical importance is transformed into a courtyard or a charming bower of relevance to the scene. Sometimes spots of mythical importance for the story are reconstructed on a vacant plot of land in the centre. Here fiction, history, and everyday reality intermingle, too. Of importance is, however, the stretch to be travelled, both by actors and the public. Indeed, one replays a story in which "the journey" plays an important role.

A fixed part of each daily episode consists of a procession from stage A to stage B. For the analysis of such procedural events, caught in the flight of time, Schechner could hardly apply Lévi-Strauss' s structural analysis and he turned towards the process analysis developed by the anthropologist Victor Turner. Turner had acquired a many yearlong experience in making process analyses of various initiation and healing rituals among the Ndembu in Zambia (Africa). Turner also used a structural analysis of his ethnographic material. Where Lévi-Strauss had leant heavily upon a linguistic analysis model such as developed by de Saussure and later Jakobson, Turner derived the basics for his approach from a sociologie model, developed by Van Gennep.

Turner's basic vision on social, ritual, or theatrical processes is: all have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. This is, indeed, the most clear regarding ritual performances. The ritual, generally speaking, starts with the isolation of those to be initiated. Regarding initiations both of boys and girls, these "uninitiated" are kept far from the village. They are separated from their familiar surroundings. The initiation as such then takes place in the absence of the people and the members of society who normally surround them. Once this period has passed, they are welcomed as an initiated member of the society into their community with a lot of music and festivities.

These stages of departure, isolation, and reen- try to which Van Gennep (1960, original 1909) also referred to as separation, marginalization, and réintégration are, according to Schechner (1983: 249 f.), also applicable to the Rãmfflã festivities. Indeed, Rama after marrying SM is exiled with her and his brother Laksmana to distant

regions. In their struggles and trials in the jungle, Rama, Sïtâ, and Laksmana are initiated. When, after 14 years of exile and war, they are reunited with Rama's other brothers, Bhãrata and Shatrughna, Rama and Sïtâ are prepared to rule in peace and justice over their kingdom.

In the forest, when Rama's beloved Sïtâ is ab- ducted by Rãvana, the demon king of (Sri) Lanka, she undergoes an additional initiatory ordeal. At the end, however, a reunion takes place on all levels: on the level of the lovers, of the family, of the state, and of the cosmos.

Savage Mind

In 1977, Turner invited Schechner to participate in a 10-day conference on ritual and performance that Turner was organizing at the Burg Wartenstein in Austria. Turner and Schechner had known each other's work, but had never met face to face. But once they did meet - at a preliminary discussion some months before the conference - they became fast and deep friends. The friendship flourished until Turner's untimely death in 1983. Schechner also became friendly with Edith Turner, Victor Turner's wife and collaborator, as well as with several of Turner's closest intellectual companions - especially the anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff (who also died young, in the early 1980s).

Schechner and Turner worked together on several projects. Turner lectured and participated in workshops convened by Schechner at New York University. Turner and Schechner prepared a large "World Conference on Ritual and Performance" that convened first in Arizona near the Yaqui tribal lands and later in New York. Participants came from all over the world.

Due to their sincere mutual interest in each other's ideas the relationship of Schechner and Turner altered something permanently in their personal growth - and by extension in the fields of anthropology and what was to become performance studies. Where Schechner until then used anthropological terms as handy figurative language (metaphors) to explain to the reader his writings about the theatre profession and the art of acting and staging, his "Performative Cir- cumstances. From the Avant Garde to Ramlila" and "Between Theater and Anthropology" became volumes aiming at an essentially anthropological view of the world. For example, Schechner no longer studied the Western actor "as if that actor was shaman. No, he now studied shamanism to find out something more about acting. Clearly a

Anthropos 98.2003



504 Kees Epskamp

period of reflection now began for Schechner, a period of research which he now allowed himself, at the end of TPG's India tour, having retreated as group's artistic leader. Much of this work had begun before Schechner and Turner met. But the meeting fed both men - almost as if it were their destiny to influence each other.

Meeting Schechner also had radical conse- quences for Victor and Edith Turner. For some time Turner (1982) looked at "social dramas" in his anthropological development and his research on the verstehende method as developed by the German phenomenologist Dilthey (1833-1911). In order to get a better grip on a process analysis of social dramas, he wished to develop a better insight into moments of experience, in the experience of a dramatic event. Hence, he was also mesmerized by Dilthey' s key conception Erlebnis.

Because of the monumental, unique, and tran- sient character of theatre it was, indeed, Turner who resuscitated the term performance in anthropology. He used it, following the linguist Chomsky and the anthropologist La Barre, not as the "speech acts" opposite "language competence," but more in the line of sociologist Erving Goffman. Goffman had indeed as early as in the fifties looked at social institutions such as hospitals, jails, theatre playhouses, universities, town halls, and the like regarding them as "total institutions," with many polished "social performances" in public life and even more squabbling and social dramas behind the scenes. What appealed to Turner in Goffman was the latter' s quest for a "dramaturgy of daily life."

Hence, Turner (1979: 60-93), therefore, dared to write an anthropology of "performance," too. The most fascinating about Turner (1982) was, however, the fact he wished to study the "anthropology of performance" not only theoretically but also practically. He wished to make the Erlebnis part and parcel of the anthropologist's syllabus. Parallel to his (course of) lectures about the research on the Ndembu in Zambia he saw to it that his students rewrote parts of his ethnogra- phies into scenarios, later to be performed, albeit without spectators. The process of making and undergoing the psychologic-realistic performance of these rituals was sufficient for Turner. He had no pretension whatsoever to become a stage director. For him it was part of a learning process, a preparation for practical field study training. The impetus for this "performed ethnography" came from Turner's work with Schechner. In fact, the first performed ethnography was actually staged in

a workshop convened by Schechner and including Victor Turner as one of the co-teachers (along with Goffman, Myerhoff, and Edith Turner).

A number of fellow anthropologists never warmly welcomed this "wild thinking" of the Turner couple. However, they could not get greatly annoyed. Turner passed away in 1983 and Schechner' s meetings with Turner suddenly came to an end. Turner left behind many unfinished ideas. Schechner (along with coeditor Willa Appel) took care of the "Festschrift," based on the World Conference on Ritual and Performance, and published in 1990 the book entitled "By Means of Performance. Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual." Herein Turner had the chance to posthumously pose the question that hurts too many anthropologists in their later years: "Is there anything culturally universal . . ., and if so, what?"

Everything Comes to an End

Many things happened to Schechner. Several years after his third India trip his artistic directorship of TPG came to an end in 1980. Times changed and thereby also the group's artistic needs. Elizabeth LeCompte, a Performance Group member since 1970, and at one time Schechner' s assistant director, took over the artistic directorship in 1980. According to M. Van der Jagt the group had ra- dically dropped Schechner' s views (1986: 4 f.). To change society by means of audience participation was considered a soft view from the seventies. The eighties demanded a new theatric language. Instead of nonmanipulative and nonauthoritarian approaching of the audience, the company now renamed "Wooster Group" opted for severe means to show the public what manipulation is, without becoming didactic, however.3

These changes drew a bill on Schechner' s development and his reason for self-searching. Ideology made place for realism with him, too. In 1980, he paid a visit to the Mickery Theatre in Amsterdam and delivered a lecture there on the rise and fall of the (American) avant-garde.

3 The Wooster Group is quite famous among the theatre- minded audience in the Netherlands because of the collab- orative work done with director Gerard Jan Rijnders, then director of Het Zuidelijk Toneel. And later as regular guests in Amsterdam where they scored a full house every time they visited the Netherlands. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, especially Dutch director Carina Molier and The Need Company seem to be inspired by the work of The Wooster Group.

Anthropos 98.2003




In it he looked back at the theatre work done in the sixties and seventies to arrive at a "better society." Returning names of theatre makers referred to constantly are: Grotowski, Barba, Cage, Wilson, Paprow, Foreman, Childs, Paxton, Back, Malina, LeCompte, Monk, Glass, Dunn, Weiss, and Schechner himself.

From this practical experience rings through into the discourse, that for Schechner a new period of thinking had commenced; postmodernism, a term Schechner can only link with the end of humanism, the end of a clear view on changes, the end of the "grand and all encompassing narratives" (1982: 95-106). Humans no longer are the measure for all things.

Typical for postmodernism studies in both literature as in anthropology, but also in art in general is: they only refer to themselves. One creates art about art, theatre about theatre, and one writes anthropology about anthropologists. That is to say: art deals with art, just as theatre is made about theatre and anthropology deals with anthropologists. The ultimate illusions about individual originality of the artists and the fictitious objectivity of the anthropologist as researcher are launched. In the arts and literature the epigone is elevated to become the standard and quotations reign supreme, both in word and image. There- fore, both anthropologists and theatre practitioners take themselves as starting point of their study. Herein they are assisted by a renewed attention with regard to writing as means of expression of experiences and impressions, and only in the last place of thoughts. Certainly in social and cultural sciences, such as history and anthropology, since days of old closely linked to literature, one deeply doubts the "completeness" of the written word. Descriptions of historic processes or of anthropological fieldwork remain a form of construction whereby, besides intellectual choices such as the writer's perspective to write from, open choices of a more literary nature also take place, to make the monograph to a certain degree readable or even "exciting." Anthropological descriptions such as belles lettres and the anthropologist as literary artist form popular subjects for research in postmodern anthropology.

For Schechner postmodernism can be summa- rized by means of ten characteristics (1982: 120- 124). In short, it boils down to: the human being in the postmodern society must rest in the fact that many things happen at different places all the time, about which we are immediately informed through many channels of communication, of which we notice something with alternating intentions and

power, whereby imagery is more important than "the real thing" and whereby the process to arrive at something is indeed in itself "performance." Finally, still according to Schechner, the human being in postmodern society must rest in the fact that the state loses influence regarding cultural life. In a multicultural society the individual has the right to choose culture and the sharing of culture shall bring about a larger formation of power and solidarity than the sharing of one and the same political system.

Regarding this last theorem Schechner along with many others was proven right within five years. The eighties were characterized by a growing fundamentalism in culture and religion the whole world over. With the collapse of nearly all communist regimes, political-ideological conflicts during the nineties resulted into essential cultural conflicts. Reason enough to strive at an intercultural society within the separate nations.

Artist and Theorist

Schechner is just as passionate about his theo- retical activities as he is about his artistic ones. However, his theories and artistic productions show very limited similarities. He is well aware of that. As a theorist he tries to explain something. As an artist he often holds a completely different view.

As a scholar and a theorist Schechner foresees a declining need for theatre as an art form in the 21st century. As an individual artist he shall, however, continue to produce theatre. As an artist he is not necessarily engaged in illustrating his theories. His style as an artist is much more limited than his interest as a theorist or historian. As a scholar, in his view, he holds much more responsibility than as an artist. He considers both to be two separate lives, although there are overlaps. This he loves and he has written profusely about this in the framework of performance theories. However, the fact he has done several open-air productions or productions on unusual occasions does not imply that site-specific theatre (see fn. 2) is characteristic for his productions. Schechner has hardly dealt with site-specific theatre in his theatre practice during the past twenty years, although he has written about it elaborately during the 1970s.

His qualities as a stage director and theatre practitioner have been put to good use in various locations around the world. Sometimes the pieces he produced were in English. Generally speaking, they were versed in a language other than English.

Anthropos 98.2003



506 Kees Epskamp

He has directed in South Africa. There he staged African- American August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." This was the first professional production of any African- American play in South Africa. In 1989 in Shanghai (China), he directed with the Peoples Art Theatre a new Chinese play by Sun Huizhou dealing with the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution - the 1966-1976 era - when the traditional culture began to be under fire. Simultaneously in real time the events on the Tien An Min Square in Peking unrolled. The US State Department recommended Schechner to leave, and he abruptly did so before completing the production. His Chinese associates took over the final rehearsals and the play was shown about 10 times before the authorities shut it down. In 1995 and 1996 he directed his own adaptation of Aeschylus' "Oresteia" at Taipei (ROC) with the Contemporary Legend Theatre. The entire trilogy was performed in the classical style of the Peking Opera. Chekhow's "Cherry Orchard" he directed in Hindi with the professional theatre company of the National School of Drama in New Delhi (India). In the meanwhile, Schechner kept making productions in the USA, mostly in New York where he founded in 1994 a new company, East Coast Artists (ECA). With ECA, Schechner directed his own version of the Faust story, called "Faust/gastronome." He has also staged Chekhov's "Three Sisters" (1998), Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (2000), and Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" (2002).

Schechner still learns from his journeys. In addition, an important lesson he draws is that one should not try to "borrow right and left" from other cultures. "Don't use items, use processes" is his motto. Don't grab a Chau or a Noh mask or a Kathakali step to then use it gratuituously in your own production. Discover what lies at the basis of such a mask or choreography and make use of those processes to then develop your own skill of expression.

This opinion does indeed differ somewhat from theatre greats such as Peter Brook and Eugênio Barba who believe in universal values, in "grand narratives." Schechner will have nothing to do with that. Brook's work should, according to Schechner, be seen as an attempt to look at various cultures while aiming at discovering a common denominator. Barba is also searching for such a common denominator. He looks for "pre- expressive behavior," behavior proceeding acting and which we share as humanity. Schechner, on the other hand, finds the cultural differences much more interesting.

Multicultural Puzzles4

Colonialism is, in essence, based on an unequal relationship of power. Structures not directly visible but influencing politics and economy are imposed by the colonial power, no questions asked. The colonized deliver the resources and raw materi- als, but the colonist determines the final product. The European colonialism of the end of the 14th century has in this way left deep traces until the present day. According to Schechner the colonial relationships do in many cases still exist in contemporary multicultural and intercultural theatre. There is, as yet, talk of a dominance of certain cultural styles not tallying with the social discussion in the North Atlantic world on multiculturalism, interculturalism, and cultural diversity.

Schechner makes a clear difference between interculturalism and multiculturalism (see his in- terview with P.Pavis [1996]). Multiculturalism is the coexistence of a enormous variety of lan- guages, cultural traditions and opinions, literature, theatre, and other performing arts, arranged in a kind of mosaic in which each part becomes more and more conscious of the existence of the many other fragments. Characteristic of multiculturalism is that it suggests a certain equality and obscures the real social relationships or rather relations of power. According to multiculturalism, cultures are equal but not the same.

Multiculturalism is based on the theory that each cultural entity has an essential quality, that cultures are equal and comparable. We have Ko- rean, Ugandan, Dutch, the Flemish-Belgian, and Franco-Belgian cultures. In an ideal world they all occupy their own place in a kind of mosaic, a jigsaw puzzle into which all the pieces fit pre- cisely. A figure of speech more sympathetic than the time honored American idea of the melting pot: you go inside differently but appear as a white, Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking American. In that sense multiculturalism is no "melting pot."

Schechner' s commentary on the model of the multicultural society is that in the multicultural ideal everything is static and complete, and nicely balanced as a picture represented in a leaded window. A multicultural society is motionless: A world without experiments and in which one is not really in for new developments.

Schechner feels more for the model of the intercultural society. With interculturalism matters

4 The remaining part of the text of this article is not so much based on written sources, but on Schechner' s remarks made during the debates in Utrecht (Epskamp en Schra 2002).

Anthropos 98.2003




are in motion, matters collide and make up a continuous process. Interculturalism does more right to the tensions really existing within the society. The intercultural world is full of diversity, but also full of risks and dangers. In the practice of daily life not each fragment will easily allow itself to fit into the perfect puzzle which the society has thought up for it.

That is why Schechner introduces the idea "interculturalism" in order to refer to the situations in which those various multicultural pieces do not fit, overlap, tear, or protrude from the border of the puzzle. People do not feel as one single piece in a puzzle but wish to belong to two or three pieces at the same time: in the morning a Jugoslavian, a Dutch in the afternoon, and somebody else at home. Nobody is only this or only that. Moreover, we are always subject to changes. Each situation asks for the necessary adaptations in order to find a place in the totality.

Globalization

Important characteristics of interculturalism are mutual influence, an open and flexible stance, and hybridity. Thus, simple definitions are lacking, and "work in progress" goes on continuously. The future of interculturality lies in repudiated hybridity. Everyone of us is hybrid, even though we all pretend to be thoroughbred.

Interculturality supplies the arena in which cultures - values, traditions, politics, styles - do not suit each other, do not share similarities, do not coexist peacefully, do not like each other. During the past ten years we have seen numerous intercultural conflicts, conflicts between people with different religions, races, ethnic groups living in each other's vicinity and not fully comfortable with each other. Taking this into consideration the interesting question rises why these conflicts have not resulted in a global war. The answer, according to Schechner, is: the dissemination of globalization.

Globalization is a process which is the result of the dominance of the Western culture and, in fact, an excrescence of the past colonialism. It is a very specific combination of technical, military, economic, ideological, and artistic development. Moreover, the dissemination of values such as de- mocracy, legislation, and market economy are part and parcel hereof. These are no natural matters but expressions and standards from the Western world related to a specific, historical development. They are forced upon others by means of military power.

Here Schechner speaks of the "airport com- plex." Only when the Gaza strip has its own international airport, only then will the Palestinians be more like the rest of the world. Not only because the airport is a universal "discovery," but also because the Palestinians will have to join up with the same monoculture, held together by certain values and necessities in the field of communication and technology. Schechner not so much opposes globalization, but considers it as a universalism of a specific cultural sort.

Here lies a intercultural problem, namely the "politically correct" supposed homogeneity of the world population opposite to the real heterogeneity in standards and values determining life in groups on a worldwide scale.

Future

In Schechner' s opinion, in accordance with post- modernist thought, no outstanding truth exists. It has indeed been only a rather short period of time - from the 18th-century Enlightenment until the mid-sixties of the 20th century - that one considered the truth to speak for itself. Now it is common knowledge that various truths can exist next to each other. According to Schechner this could lead to the sharing of the culture in the 21st century perhaps becoming of more importance than the sharing of the same political and / or ideological system.

Ultimately Schechner was indeed proven right in this matter. Characteristic of the last ten years of the last century was the world wide growth of fundamentalism in culture and religion. Along with the downfall of nearly all communist regimes, political-ideological conflicts turned into genuine cultural conflicts. These, in turn, resulted in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 implying an upheaval in thoughts on cultural relationships.

Schechner makes clear that he draws no hope from the future. He is no Utopian. In his view the world will not improve in the future, only change. In two things he clearly does not believe: utopia and nostalgia. He is only interested in his past if it helps him to construct his present and shape a mutual future.

Armed with this knowledge Schechner arrives at the conclusion that theatre has not one but two futures. Modern drama flourished from 1880 until around 1970. At present, however, it no longer exists. After Brecht et al., there are only a few "eructations" in the field of stock-plays with-

Anthropos 98.2003



508 Kees Epskamp

out any significance. Next, we saw experimental performances; important, but no drama.

Theatre as part of the "fine arts" shall, therefore, continue to exist. Like visual and plastic arts, performing arts will have a museum function to be compared with the symphony orchestra, classical ballet, opera. The stock of written drama, played by national theatre groups, will be given a museum value. A few new pieces will appear, but from the perspective of theatre history the era of great drama lies far behind us, as does the era of modernism.

However, we see theatre in the broadest sense of the word as performance, as interactions played out as with popular amusement, sports, religious rituals, and public court sessions, then a future without theatre is unthinkable. It is almost indissol- ubly part and parcel of the postmodern era. In the form of media performance or community-based performance, theatre will have to look for its own way during the 21st century.

As a theatre director Richard Schechner shall contribute hereto only in a very limited manner. As yet his interest goes out to directing texts borrowed from the classical repertoire. As a theorist he published his most recent book on performance studies in 2002: A practical guide navigating the reader through a recent and disciplinary field of study. Schechner in his own words states: "performance is a discipline in development." It is rooted in the coming together of theatre, anthropology and the social sciences, history, gender studies, semiotics and communication theories, psycho- analysis, game theory, ethology, studies in popular culture, media studies, feminist theory, and gay studies.

Back to the Beginning

This introduction to Richard Schechner' s early work as a theorist in the field of the anthropology of theatre mostly deals with the period 1969- 1985. Attention is especially paid to his personal development of ideas, as a practitioner and as a scholar, with a growing interest in theatre in other cultures. Not only does the attention go out to the way he has directed his interest but especially to the way he has versed his experiences with these new theatrical traditions as a theorist and placed them in a changing anthropological framework. And, finally, how he became one of the founders of the "anthropology of performing arts."

Since then two major events have taken place, which were to have far-reaching social conse-

quences. This has greatly influenced Schechner' s thinking during the period 1985-2002. The first event was the collapse of the Berlin Wall ter- minating the Cold War. It exchanged political differences for cultural differences which were to play an important role in the way people saw each other and dealt with each other. The second event is, of course, September 11. This, too, sharpened Schechner' s views. For this reason, since the end of the 1980s, Schechner writes more and more about multicultural and intercultural relationships in society. With the assault on the Twin Towers, he sketches in sharp terms his ideas on the political relationships of power during the 21st century, on fundamentalism in thinking, and on terrorism as instrument of power. In fact, he writes less and less on theatre and more and more on politics. Back to the beginning of the sixties when he started, in his own words, not as a director of theatre but as a cultural activist.

References Cited

Epskamp, Kees, en Emile Schra 2002 Interculturele puzzels. Richard Schechner en het theater

in de 2 le eeuw. Utrecht: Stichting PassePartout.

Goffman, Erving 1975 Frame Analysis. An Essay on the Organization of

Experience. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Pavis, Patrice 1996 The Intercultural Performance Reader. London: Routl-

edge.

Schechner, Richard 1969 Public Domain. Essays on the Theater. Indianapolis:

Bobbs-Merrill. 1973 Environmental Theater. New York: Hawthorn Books. 1977 Essays on Performance Theory 1970-1976. New York:

Drama Book Specialists Publishers. 1980 The Decline and Fall of the (American) Avantgarde.

Why It Happened and What We Can Do about It. Amsterdam: Mickery. (Mickery Memo, 6)

1982 The End of Humanism. Writings on Performance. New York: Performing Arts Publications.

1983 Performative Circumstances. From the Avant Garde to Ramlila. Calcutta: Seagull Press.

1985 Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: Uni- versity of Pennsylvania Press.

1997 Theatre for Tomorrow. The Unesco Courier (November 1997): 6-11.

2002 Performance Studies. An Introduction. London: Routl- edge.

Schechner, Richard, and Willa Appel (eds.) 1990 By Means of Performance. Intercultural Studies of

Theatre and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Turner, Victor 1979 Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage. A Study in Com-

Anthropos 98.2003




parative Symbology. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.

1982 From Ritual to Theatre. The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.

Turner, Victor, and Edith Turner 1982 Performing Ethnography. The Drama Review 26/2: 33-

50.

Van der Jagt, Marijn 1986 The Wooster Group; enkel de hoogtepunten. Toneel

Teatraal 107/9: 4-5.

Van Gennep, Arnold 1960 The Rites of Passage. Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press. [1909]

Anthropos 98.2003



Date post:	29-Nov-2015
Category:	Documents
Upload:	marcela-maria
View:	22 times
Download:	2 times

Epskamp. Intercultural Puzzles, Schechner...

Documents