Views on intercultural exchanges within theatre practice from contributors including: Peter Brook, Clive Barker, Jacques Lecoq and Rustom Bharucha.

This is the first in-depth examination of contemporary intercultural performance by women around the world. Contemporary feminist performance is explored in the contexts of current intercultural practices, theories and debates. Holledge and Tompkins provide ways of thinking about and analysing contemporary performance and representations of the performing, female, culturally-marked body. The book includes discussions of: * ritual performance by women from Central Australia and Korea * the cultural exchange of A Doll's House and Antigone * plays from Algeria, South Africa and Ghana * the work of the Takarazuka revue company * the market forces that govern the distribution of women and women's performance. This is an essential read for anyone studying or interested in women's performance.

John Martin explains the definition and development of intercultural performance studies from the perspective of an experienced practitioner.

In the modern world we are accustomed to conceptualising international relations in terms of national identity. We speak of English culture, French culture and American culture as if these things were the basic building blocks of global civilisation. While there is no doubt that national culture is important, such a view fails to take account of the fact that there is great diversity within nations and powerful connections across national frontiers. Just as individuals cannot be understood in isolation from the society of which they are a part, so national cultures cannot be understood in isolation from the global community. Since the beginning of human history cross-cultural exchange has been important in bringing about social change. This can be seen vividly in the way languages and their associated literary and dramatic traditions have interacted with one another. This volume brings together a collection of essays that focus on the role cross-cultural exchange has played in performance in the theatre and in film. The aim is not to suggest any systematic theory of cross-cultural exchange but rather to present a variety of examples that illustrate the subtle and complex way in which different cultures interact.

This is the first systematic study of networks of performance collaboration in the contemporary Chinese-speaking world and of their interactions with the artistic communities of the wider East Asian region. It investigates the aesthetics and politics of collaboration to propose a new transnational model for the analysis of Sinophone theatre cultures and to foreground the mobility and relationality of intercultural performance in East Asia. The research draws on extensive fieldwork, interviews with practitioners, and direct observation of performances, rehearsals, and festivals in Asia and Europe. It offers provocative close readings and discourse analysis of an extensive corpus of hitherto untapped sources, including unreleased video materials and unpublished scripts, production notes, and archival documentation.

Intercultural Acting and Performer Training is the first collection of essays from a diverse, international group of authors and practitioners focusing on intercultural acting and voice practices worldwide. This unique book invites performers and teachers of acting and performance to explore, describe, and interrogate the complexities of intercultural acting and actor/performer training taking place in our twenty-first century, globalized world. As global contexts become multi-, inter- and intra-cultural, assumptions about what acting "is" and what actor/performer training should be continue to be shaped by conventional modes, models, techniques and structures. This book examines how our understanding of interculturalism changes when we shift our focus from the obvious and highly visible aspects of production to the micro-level of training grounds, studios, and rehearsal rooms, where new forms of hybrid performance are emerging. Ideal for students, scholars and practitioners, Intercultural Acting and Performer Training offers a series of accessible and highly readable essays which reflect on acting and training processes through the lens offered by "new" forms of intercultural thought and practice.

Lengel takes the reader on a journey from India and Romania, where women preserve cultural rituals through mourning songs, to South Africa, where the body is a site of struggle for meaning and power in contemporary dance. This volume examines the interrelationship of cultural and national identity, ethnicity, gender, performance, and lived experience. It offers an understanding of how music and dance function within the lives of its performers and audiences, and how they embody meaning, carry social value, and act as a vehicle for intercultural communication. This book analyzes the communicative impact of women's cultural products and creative practice and creates links across disciplines such as communication, cultural studies, and performance studies. Contributors have lived, researched, and performed in the United States, Australia, Belize, Barbados, Canada, China, England, India, the Pacific, Romania, and Yemen. Their chapters address women's creative performance as a means of political and ideological expression.