About
INTERCULTURAL AND GLOBAL PERFORMANCES
Some believe globalization is the inevitable next step in human social evolution on the way toward a single world system. What kind of system? Economic, surely. Possibly political too because “free-market capitalism” and “democracy” go hand in hand. If a world system emerges, it may resemble more a universal caliphate or fascist superstate than a global democracy. Or the world may share media and advanced science while struggling for centuries over economic, political, religious, and cultural values. Neither in the near term nor the long run is there a guarantee of a world system founded on “human rights.”
But what about world popular culture? What if people everywhere listen to the same music, wear the same clothes, and watch the same movies -- will this result in an improvement in their daily material, political, or spiritual lives? Or will ongoing culture wars result in ever-tightening interlocked surveillance and control systems? Will the firewalls and passport controls of the future block not only computer viruses and unwelcome aliens but also ideas? The advocates of the internet argue that the web is uncontrollable, a self-generating global agora. But at the same time, new techniques of control – some subtle and invisible, some heavy-handed involving intimidation, imprisonment, torture, and assassination – are also afoot. Whatever the case, an important part of the work of performance studies is to project various possibilities. Even to test some by means of performance.
Classroom Activities
PERFORM
- Using social media, contact people from at least four different cultures and geographical regions. Set up a web-based group meeting. Use “mother tongues” and don't translate into English. Can you communicate? How much comes across? On the basis of your experience, do you think globalization can succeed only if there is a hegemonic language?
- Stage a “border scene” in the style of Gómez-Peña. Do it twice, once in class; once in a public space.
- Work in groups to create an intercultural performance. Take time at the start to discuss your own cultural backgrounds and try to incorporate these experiences into the performance. Then, you can decide as a group whether to research and try to include elements from cultures outside the group. Is your performance an example of horizontal or vertical intercultural performance?
- Create a tourist performance on campus. It could be a creative or themed campus tour, a living museum, or something else. Gather “tourists” to serve as your audience.
- Create a piece of social theatre. You can work with a group of classmates, work alone, or find a local organization to collaborate with. How is social theatre different from conventional theatre?
WRITE ABOUT
- How have you been personally affected by globalization? Write about your experience.
- Choose two intercultural performances: one that is integrative, and another that is disruptive. In what ways do their ultimate goals differ? What similar means, if any, are used to achieve these goals?
- Write a critique of the “glocal.” Do you think this is a helpful term? Does it mask the problems surrounding globalization or does it speak to the “hope” in globalization of a better world?
- Watch an international sporting event—either live or recorded—and write about the event. How do the nations involved perform identity? Who are they performing for?
Weblinks
- Link to the Daily Telegraph’s image collection of newspaper covers the day after 9/11
- Visit the website for the Japanese butoh company Sankai Juki
- Marshall McLuhan on the global village
- Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s La Pocha Nostra
- Visit James Thompson’s In Place of War project
- Watch a behind the scenes look at Julie Taymor’s staging of The Tempest
- Learn more about the work of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards
- Explore Lee Breuer and Mabou Mines’s current work
- Browse the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi
- Link to Odin Teatret and ISTA’s youtube channel
- The Olympics
- The living museums at Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg
- Resistance to globalization: Experience Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
- Scenarios of globalization
- Browse Suzanne Lacy’s current work
- Théâtre du Soleil’s website
- Subscribe to the Theatre Works Singapore youtube channel
- Visit Thomas L. Friedman’s website to read more of his writings about globalization and selected foreign affairs columns for the New York Times.
- Experience travel physically and virtually here, here and here
- Images from Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit…
- Browse the United Nations 2018 Human Development Indices and Indicators
- Read more about the Yellow Vests
Sample Discussion Questions
TALK ABOUT
- Has globalization affected you personally? If so, are these effects good or bad?
- From the point of view of the majority of the world’s peoples, do you believe globalization is good or bad? Whatever your answer, what can you do performatively either to advance or to stop globalization?
- Have you ever had an “intercultural moment,” when you have miscommunicated or been misunderstood because of a difference in cultures? What did you do in that situation? What should be done in such circumstances?
- What does it mean to talk about globalization “as” performance? Discuss what it means to talk about “scenarios” of globalization.
- Tourist performance: have you ever traveled to a place where cultural performances were offered? How were such performances “packaged” for the tourist audience? Compare your experiences to those of others.