Postdramatisches Theater als transkulturelles Theater

The Concept of World Theatre in Postdramatic Context: Scientific and Aesthetic Points of Reference and Implications

Roundtable discussion with Christopher Balme (New Zealand, Germany), Günther Heeg (Germany), Eiichiro Hirata (Japan), Patrick Primaversi (Germany), Mziwoxolo Sirayi (South Africa), and Janine Lewis (South Africa). Moderator: Koku G. Nonoa (Togo, Austria)

Koku G. Nonoa: Referring to Goethe’s World Literature, we would like to address the concept of World Theatre in this podium discussion and call into question its meaning and its implications for the diversity of theatrical forms of expression in today’s world. Which form of theatre is relevant for the globally diverse performative and ritual forms of expression of theatrical practices? Goethe’s idea of World Literature, which could also be related to the concept of World Theatre, raises the following question: is this concept still up-do-date?

Günther Heeg: In my view it is not very helpful to assume that World Theatre is composed of a few basic theatrical elements, which are identical everywhere in the world. This concept was already highly debated in the 1980’s. It was characterized as the other side of Western theatre, drama, language, literature, etc., since concepts such as this one require a binary scheme or an enemy image. This results in opposition and hostility towards foreigners instead of dialogue. If there is such a thing as World Theatre, then it is still in its developmental stages. An emerging World Theatre cannot be a theatre of bogeymen and political opposition, but must rather be a theatre based on displacement and disposition. I would suggest favoring a historical approach when discussing the idea of a World Theatre, instead of reverting to anthropological, originary and basic practices and forms that exist everywhere in the world. In the context of globalization structurally accompanied by fundamentalism, returning to origins, to the original and to the anthropological is not helpful. The postdramatic theatre of Hans-Thies Lehmann strictly follows a historical approach. Lehmann never sought to name the original. In opposition to language-based theatre, there is currently a form of theatre based in ritual and which confronts the superiority of the text with the body.

Christopher Balme: I will speak here from the viewpoint of New Zealand. My first question is: does New Zealand have theatre like other countries in Africa, Europe or Asia? Yes, New Zealand does have theatre. But the more interesting question is the meaning of the word “world” in the concept of World Theatre. Where do we find similar structures? There is, for example, World Music, World Literature and World Art. So there are many meanings of the word “world”. Maybe you will disagree with me, but I do think that in every place the word “world” means something different. For example, World Music was and is more of a marketing concept for a specific kind of music; if you go to a record shop you will find a category called “World Music”; or if you study music in the UK today to earn a degree in music, you would probably find it as part of the curriculum. World Art is another concept that has frequently been discussed in the last fifteen years. What does it mean? In art history, for example, the origins of art go back to prehistorical cave paintings discovered in Europe. And basically, World Art seems to mean everything except the European canon. So, we have an interesting situation of “world” referring to everything and anything except the European canon. This seems to be one way of understanding the term “world”. How are we going to apply the term “world” to theatre? I will argue that this doesn’t work: the idea of everything being the world except Europe cannot be applied to theatre because theatre is not an European concept. It is interesting enough that all these music and art histories have a very strong national orientation. Literature in particular defines itself in nationalistic terms, for example French literature, German literature or English literature. Theatre has never really defined itself in very strong nationalistic terms, even if we have national theatre buildings and so on. But theatre has always travelled all around the world as a medium. I agree, there are times when it becomes localized and established in some cities, but theatre has always undertaken tours. When I consciously said at the beginning that there was theatre in New Zealand, what I meant of course was that the institution theatre has been adopted all over the world. If we talk about World Theatre, we should also ask ourselves the interesting question: Why do we have a theatre building in New Zealand, in Ulaanbaatar, in Wladiwostok, in Lomé, or in all Japanese cities? Why do we play theatre? How does the theatre institution enter the world and under which conditions? It is a complex story and we have to look at these questions. This is why the term “World Theatre” appears relevant to me.

Patrick Primavesi: We should regard theatre not just as an art or as one of the art forms that can be compared to music, the fine arts or literature, but also as a cultural practice. This helps us to understand why theatre, particularly in the 19^th century but also in our times, could become a means of national representation while at the same time opening the horizons to other cultures, traditions and practices. In order to examine its representational values and structures with regards to the concept of nation and national culture, it is indeed helpful to go back to Goethe’s idea of a World Theatre. This idea already contains two different tendencies. On the one hand you have the vision of open horizons that include all those elements of human experience beyond the limitations of a particular local or regional culture, e.g. in Weimar. When Goethe became director of the Weimar court theatre he wanted to build something like a transnational repertoire, based on new translations. As we all know, translations became very important in those times for German theatre culture. However, the methods and ends of translation were highly controversial regarding the extent to which the experience of the foreign as such should be conveyed to an audience. Goethe enlarged the horizon of German theatre by including not only Greek theatre (tragedy and comedy) on the Weimar stage but also Shakespeare, Calderón, Gozzi, and Voltaire, in order to create a framework for a more elaborate German theatre culture. However, these translations and their stage productions were full of compromises and adaptations to a common taste. On the other hand, in his later work, there is another type of world experience, perhaps a more radical encounter with the foreign. His West-East Divan (1819) deals with a kind of open dialogue between Arabic and German poetry.

Contemporarily, there was an important phase in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when a new concept of World Theatre was promoted by the work of Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Eugenio Barba, Robert Wilson, and many others. This concept sought to explore how people all over the world could communicate through theatre. These efforts definitely went beyond the limits of dramatic literature but they were still dominated by a Western perspective. Therefore, from today’s point of view, talking about World Theatre should include an awareness of the potential, by which theatre as a cultural practice reflects and transgresses the boundaries of representation as well.

Janine Lewis: I look at theatre as a profession. My understanding of the word “world” is influenced by different factors such as historical, institutional or colonial influences. Before the advent colonial influence, South African theatre was largely embodied and expressed in role-plays with numerous performance elements. This became the basis of the features of the South African theatre style per se. This theatre style developed and emerged through the township theatres and raised issues of resistance during the Apartheid period; it also becomes known later as protest theatre, agitprop or varieties. This means that at that time, we began engaging with postdramatic theatre performances through our ways of finding venues, spaces and activation of moments as theatrical narratives and performances. At the same time, there was theatre in Western, European styles related to literature. In our democratic environment today in South Africa, we have unfortunately lost the emphasis on embodied, postdramatic theatre that we used to have. We now focus more on structures and literature and we are trying to follow rules that are not necessarily very applicable to our means of theatrical storytelling and role-playing in South Africa. The artistic communities think that their work will only be legitimized if it is performed in institutional theatre spaces in the Western or European way, and this is one way of interpreting how World Theatre has impacted us in South Africa.

Eiichiro Hirata: For me, the concept of World theatre is confusing. Unlike the concept of World Literature, the concept of World Theatre means something very abstract to me. At the centre of theatrical practice, the body and the concrete gesture are foregrounded, which are visible and tangible for everyone. The body and excess would be the common denominator of many theatrical forms of expression worldwide, constituting a form of expression first on the individual and then on the collective level. On this basis, I could name various comparable examples from the Japanese cultural space. Here, my first question would be: What is Kabuki Theatre?

When and how did it start? It all began centuries ago with a woman who started dancing all by herself on a riverbank in Kyoto, which fascinated many people. Many young people joined her activities and showcased their singing and dancing. Kabuki began in a local spot in Kyoto and was later performed in other cities. 300 years later, when the Japanese society became open to the Western world and the subsequent intercultural exchanges, Kabuki became known as a “Japanese theatre” in the “world.”

As many Japanese had suffered under the feudal system, the contact with Western culture was perceived as liberating. Along with the cultural opening towards the Western world, Japan first got in touch with Western theatre, e.g. William Shakespeare and Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen’s Nora, for example, is one of the first modern Western plays performed in Japan. When we speak of World Theatre, we have to consider historically differentiated developments and culture-specific characteristic forms of theatre, and along with it, socio-cultural resistance which theatre can practice against oppressive situations in each society.

Koku G. Nonoa: On the basis of everything you have said I will affirm that it is not possible to reduce all theatrical cultures and practices in the world and their corresponding modes of expression to one single theatrical form and structure. Historical and cultural approaches are very important. This means that taking into account diverse perspectives in their socio-cultural context should reflect more lived cultural practices of people in Asia or Africa or other non-Western theatre practices than the Eurocentric viewpoint could. The historical dimension of colonialism and the influence of Europe relating to the global spread of Western theatre culture should also be questioned and analyzed e.g. in relation to theatre buildings. Considering the process of institutionalizing theatre through the construction of (national) theatre buildings in Europe and in other places or continents in the world (during the period of colonization) helps us to figure out how certain forms of theatre successfully spread throughout the world. Equally taking into account historical and institutional impacts in relation to culture-specific dimensions, it becomes clear that theatre has always been more than artistic practice: it is a cultural practice, a medium of social representation and an expression of cultural performance.

Mziwoxolo Sirayi: I agree with the speakers that the word “world” in the concept of World Theatre is problematic. I advocate an approach which focuses on the description of theatrical practices rather than on definitions of concepts related to theatre. When, e.g., the missionaries came in Africa and saw theatrical role-playing, they said: “There is no theatre in Africa as we know it in Europe”. This means they had a specific understanding on the basis of which the whole concept of theatre is defined in Europe. So I would like to ask: When we talk about the concept of theatre or World Theatre, are we talking about a technical definition or a practical definition? Is it the definition of Word Theatre we are looking for when we are among Xhosa or Zulu people in South Africa? If yes, you will never find such a word; you can never find a word that literally translates the terms “theatre” or World Theatre into Xhosa or Zulu language in the European understanding. If we take, e.g., the concept of the “human being“ in analogy to the concept of theatre, we become aware that this is actually an English or European term: does this mean that there are no human beings among Xhosa or Zulu people just because there is no literal translation of the concept of “human being“ in their languages? Of course, there are human beings there, too. We might not have the concept of theatre in the European understanding of the term, but does this imply that we don’t have theatrical practices? The question is, how do people in South Africa explain and describe their theatrical practices? And moreover, Africa is not a homogeneous continent. There are so many different communities and cultures in Africa. Are we suggesting that each of these diverse cultures and its people do not have theatrical practices and do not name them according to their own understanding and modes of expression? It is good to look at how, e.g., Xhosa or Zulu people describe and label these theatrical practices. If we look at the notion of “World Theatre” from a practical perspective, we may not have the same concept, but there are many similarities between performance practices in Europe and Africa that make one think of different forms of theatre practice.

Teresa Kovacs (from the audience): I think it is very important to question what the term “World Theatre” is actually supposed to mean. After a historical contextualization, we should also ask ourselves what relationship between world and theatre we are thinking of.

Günther Heeg: The problem is related to the concept of the “world“, which is related to marketing strategies. I would propose another term, rooted in the French approach based on the work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. In my view, the key terms in this respect are globalization and mondialisation in the processual sense of becoming a world. This means that the world actually does not exist. In Jean-Luc Nancy’s understanding, there is only the creation of a world, his thesis being that globalization should be seen as economic globalization. Financial flow in the form of digital communication led to an agglomeration of wealth and poverty in large metropoles. This, however, does not lead to the development of a world. For Nancy, it is all about what this world development could look like. He says that this mondialisation can only emerge from a “lack of meaning”; this is constituted by theatre. Theatre does not have a reason: It is not rooted in cult, or in religion, or in politics. Theatre is a phenomenon of repetition and therefore, the development of a world can be considered a philosophy of theatre. This could be a starting point for the term “World Theatre”.

Patrick Primavesi: It is not productive to continue the use of too narrow a concept of theatre. “Theater der Welt” for instance is a German attempt to present different theatre forms of the world at festivals. However, obviously, neither the festival “Theater der Welt”, nor the concept of World Theatre can represent all theatre practices of the world. Once more, I suggest a closer look at theatrical practices. We should also avoid the trap of claiming that theatre belongs to a particular national or indigenous ritual practice. Instead of merely representing something like the true origin of a specific culture, theatre can intensify a multidimensional und diverse process of exchange between different cultures and different worlds.

Koku G. Nonoa: An comment coming from the audience says it is very important to talk more about practices instead of focusing on a highbrow literary conception of theatre. If you talk about “World Literature” you always have an idea of the highbrow. We also have film in theatre practice. Film in general it is not as strongly related to highbrow literature as theatre.

Chistopher Balme: This is an interesting point. We have to historicize the term “theatre” to understand historical backgrounds. I don’t think that a hundred years ago, when Western theatre was introduced in Asian countries, it was understood in a highbrow way. I have been studying and doing research on an English acting manager who toured around the world between 1900 and 1922 and constructed many theatre buildings. And what he performed in most theatres was anything: he would for instance also show films and movies etc. He used to show English musical comedies too, but we still recognize theatre in the activities he performed in the buildings he constructed.

Theatre buildings have a very complex history. There are a lot of things going on in these buildings that belong to the practice of theatre. This is part of the story when talking about how Western theatre came into the world. What spread throughout the world quietly and in a heterogeneous way may be forgotten now. So, film yes, but it is one of the many cultural practices that are also used in theatres.

Koku G. Nonoa: It is becoming obvious in this debate that all the speakers are trying to find alternative ways of dealing with theatre as a cultural practice that is approached and expressed in diverse ways around the world. Theatre as cultural practice is not (only) a highbrow and homogeneous medium, theatre is a culturally specific medium that reflects (on) historical, economical und political realities all over the world.

My last question to you, speakers of the panel: Which understanding of theatre linked to power relations in the world is useful to approach theatre practice? Because talking, e.g., about theatre as a medium of cultural practice also relates to questions about power relations and power play. How does theatre as a cultural practice handle this power situation?

Janine Lewis: I think we must look at different world performances and other ritualistic practices of theatre that share some similarities with the contemporary understanding of theatre practice. The chosen concept of World Theatre should focus more on play and practice theories. The power relation in this context is linked to the question of how a predisposed kind of understanding of theatre coming from someplace is being imposed, e.g. in Africa, without embracing what is already there. We should be looking for new terminologies that are accessible for all if we want to exchange in multidimensional and inter-artistic ways.

Patrick Primavesi: Theatre practice has always dealt with power relations and with the power of play. On the one hand, theatre is able to represent existing relations of power, struggles of dominance, rivalry, exploitation, violence and so on. On the other hand, theatre practice is itself a situation of playing with power relations because once you start to play you approach a position of relational power. The power play then is also about the ability of theatre practice to overcome fixed structures of behavior between people and among groups. Theatre practice has a potential to make things flexible again when a particular power position and governance structure has been established. In this sense, theatre can function as a process of playful empowerment that sometimes may even contribute to political empowerment. However, the concept of World Theatre is an example of a vision that produces its own dynamics, turning out to be – in the worst case – just another concept of hegemonic representational power. Therefore, we should continue to look at theatre practices in other cultures that still can offer a different understanding of the European practices from another perspective, in particular regarding relations of power, powerlessness, and play.

Günther Heeg: I agree and would like to add the following: I think if, for example, a ritual is repeated in any form in theatre, it no longer represents a ritual, because theatre does not have a symbolic meaning that serves, for instance, to represent a particular god. Everything shifts into the aesthetic and artistic, respectively. The relation to power happens in the background of globalization, which means that theatre docks on to this institution and movement by undermining and unveiling it and by being capable of shifting and changing its boundaries. In this process, theatre does not have a meaning, either; theatre is a neutral-dynamic field. This is the power of theatre.

Christopher Balme: I understand theatre like obscenity. I can’t define it, but I know when I see it. What I considered to be obscene five or ten years ago may no longer be considered obscene today. This is where the analogy of theatre to culture becomes interesting: I understand theatre as approaching cultural practice, which keeps changing; and it keeps absorbing other cultural practices everywhere in the world. Theatre is a continuously changing cultural practice. Today, theatre defies the laws of globalization by continuing to change its forms and thus escaping the forces of homogenization. There are so many forms of theatre today, and there have been throughout history. That’s why theatre is also a success story.

Eiichiro Hirata: Regarding the question of power relations, I would say that theatre has an ambiguous relationship with power. Theatre on the one hand mainly consists of individual excess in opposition to the collective. On the other hand, every theatre maker needs his or her own protagonists and audience, who collectively obey particular socio-cultural norms. These contradictory forms of theatre praxis appear differently in each society in the world. This difference in Derrida’s sense can direct the attention not only to many other theatre forms in close and distant cultures but also to their contradictory forms which link to the ambiguous relationship with power. The attention to the contradiction and its various relationships to power in many societies enables us to have a more appropriate insight into the theatre of not only other cultures but also our own.