World Literature Today · 1998 · 89 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesPerforming ArtsTheatre StudiesDramaDramaturgyTheatre HistoryContemporary DramaturgyHistorical DramaturgyTheatrical ArchitectureTheatrical ChoreographyTheatrical FormComparative Theatre HistoryCultural Institutions ArchitectureHistory Of Theatrical InstitutionsTheater AestheticsTheatre CirculationTheatrical EnvironmentTheatrical HistoriographyTwentieth-century Historiography
The book examines how theatre, like a market, exchanges stories, rituals, ideas, and other cultural elements, challenging traditional conceptions of theatre. The essays aim to investigate the boundaries separating theatre from other cultural domains. The author uses diverse historical and contemporary examples to theorize history, performance analysis, and theory, offering new perspectives in theatre research.
Theatre, in some respects, resembles a market. Stories, rituals, ideas, perceptive modes, conversations, rules, techniques, behavior patterns, actions, language, and objects constantly circulate back and forth between theatre and the other cultural institutions that make up everyday life in the twentieth century. These exchanges, which challenge the established concept of theatre in a way that demands to be understood, form the core of Erika Fischer-Lichte's dynamic book. Each eclectic essay investigates the boundaries that separate theatre from other cultural domains. Every encounter between theatre and other art forms and institutions renegotiates and redefines these boundaries as part of an ongoing process. Drawing on a wealth of fascinating examples, both historical and contemporary, Fischer-Lichte reveals new perspectives in theatre research from quite a number of different approaches. Energetically and excitingly, she theorizes history, theorizes and historicizes performance analysis, and historicizes theory.