The Spectre of Tradition and the Aesthetic-Political Movement of Theatre and Performance An Intercultural Perspective

This book interrogates anew the phenomenon of tradition in a dialogical debate with a host of Western thinkers and critical minds. In contrast to the predominantly Western approaches, which look at traditions (Western and non-Western) from a predominantly (Western) modernist perspective, this book interrogates, from an intercultural perspective, the transnational and transcultural consecration, translation, (re)invention, and displacement of traditions (theatrical and cultural) in the aesthetic-political movement of twentieth-century theatre and performance, as exemplified in the case studies of this book. It looks at the question of traditions and modernities at the centre of this aesthetic-political space, as modernities interculturally evoke and are haunted by traditions, and as traditions are interculturally refracted, reconstituted, refunctioned, and reinvented. It also looks at the applicability of its intercultural perspective on tradition to the historical avant-garde in general, postmodern, postcolonial, and postdramatic theatre and performance and to the twentieth-century "classical" intercultural theatre and the twenty-first-century "new interculturalisms" in theatre and performance. To conclude, it looks at the future of tradition in the ecology of our globalized theatrum mundi and considers two important interrelated concepts, future tradition and intercultural tradition. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in performance studies.

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: The Legitimation of Tradition and the Construction of an Intercultural Myth - Mei Lanfang Remembers Stanislavsky Chapter 2: The Refraction of Tradition - Meyerhold’s and Stanislavsky’s Approaches to Pushkin and Meyerhold’s Pushkinization of Mei Lanfang’s Art Chapter 3: The Consecration of Tradition - Eisenstein’s Approach to Chinese Theatre and Culture Chapter 4: The Uncanny Quotability of Tradition: Walter Benjamin’s Interest in Chinese Cultural Traditions Chapter 5: The Fabrication of Tradition - Lady Precious Stream, a Chinese Chinoiserie Anglicized on Modern British Stage Chapter 6: The Reification of Tradition - Meyerhold’s Influence on Twentieth-Century Japanese and Chinese Theatres Conclusion Bibliography Index

Min Tian has taught as an Associate Professor at the China Central Academy of Drama and currently works at the University of Iowa, USA.