Between Theater and Anthropology

by Richard Schechner, Victor Turner (Contribution by)

Overview

In performances by Euro-Americans, Afro-Americans, Native Americans, and Asians, Richard Schechner has examined carefully the details of performative behavior and has developed models of the performance process useful not only to persons in the arts but to anthropologists, play theorists, and others fascinated (but perhaps terrified) by the multichannel realities of the postmodern world.

Schechner argues that in failing to see the structure of the whole theatrical process, anthropologists in particular have neglected close analogies between performance behavior and ritual. The way performances are created—in training, workshops, and rehearsals—is the key paradigm for social process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812200928
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	08/03/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Richard Schechner is University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. He is the founding director of The Performance Group and founding artistic director of East Coast Artists. He is also the author of The End of Humanism, Performance Theory, and The Future of Ritual.

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	Foreword	xi
	Acknowledgments	xiii
1	Points of Contact Between Anthropological and Theatrical Thought	3
2	Restoration of Behavior	35
3	Performers and Spectators Transported and Transformed	117
4	Ramlila of Ramnagar	151
5	Performer Training Interculturally	213
6	Playing with Genet's Balcony: Looking Back on a 1979/1980 Production	261
7	News, Sex, and Performance Theory	295
	References	325
	Index	333

Editorial Reviews

"Fascinating for anyone seriously interested in human behavior, full of ideas that lead us to reexamine our thinking about all performances, from the most dramatic to the most seemingly trivial."

New York Times

"Fascinating for anyone seriously interested in human behavior, full of ideas that lead us to reexamine our thinking about all performances, from the most dramatic to the most seemingly trivial."—New York Times

From the Publisher