What do we, in fact, talk about when we talk about interculturalism?
What do we refer to when, more and more often and with an ever greater eagerness, or even casually, we use (or even abuse) this ambiguous, powerful, strongly superfluous culturological term, a term which, since the end of the 1960s, has in an imposing manner grown into a respectable methodological category?
Most importantly, how and why is this respectable methodological category constantly ‘imposed’ on an ever-growing number of scholarly areas which become more and more varied and which in different ways promote the culturological perspective of contemporary phenomena, from anthropology, sociology and comparative literature to communicology? The same can be said of theatrology, a scholarly field which is to us, at this very moment, the most intriguing among them, an exceptionally dynamic “scholarly field within the framework of social science and the humanities which, through a number of scholarly disciplines, strives to interpret the origin, manner of operation, functions and the artistic and expressive determinants of the theatre not only in the diachronical, but also in the synchronical aspect of its forms of expression” (Batušić, 1989:9).
Dictionaries of literary and/or theatrical terms define interculturalism as a specific philosophical and aesthetic PERSPECTIVE which allows a view of the integral cultural system (culture understood and ‘practiced’ as an integral system) as a provocative, dynamic, practically unlimited COMMON field of permanently interactive action open in an Eco-like manner to all THAT and to all THOSE that participate in its permanent ‘happening’, regardless of whether they participate in it “intentionally” (in which case we can speak of programmed participation) or simply because they were ‘caught in the act’/carried away by the inductive force of the very (magnetic) field of interculturalism. Ergo, this definition suggests that the famous field of interculturalism functions in an almost mythical manner – as a field which is practically without boundaries and, in fact, endless.
In more simple terms, the intercultural concept involves the inclusion/activation of (most) diverse cultures which – in a certain context and/or moment, because they have, for a number of reasons, only/randomly intertwined, or perhaps because their mutual contact was intentional in order to accomplish a certain creative or hermeneutical mission and/or goal – pragmatically join forces in/around a concept which had previously been recognized as potentially common. The merging, of course, presupposes an initial contact (of the various cultures in focus) which is then expressed as an inevitable/authentic contact that eventually results in an authentic/direct/immediate communication between subjects that have touched and continue to do so. Since every communication is at least bilateral, and this includes communication between two (or more) cultures, it always inevitably results in the taking over of certain elements that originally belonged either to the culture that has initiated the contact (this culture could be provisionally termed the culture which ‘gives’ or the culture of the First) or to the culture which positively responds to this initiative, i.e., which accepts communication (this culture can be provisionally termed the culture which ‘receives’, or the culture of the Second). Thus, through such two-way communication, the different cultures not only touch in an authentic manner, but also inevitably provoke an authentic, live/genuine exchange between all the participants concerned by this process: the First, the Second, the Third… the number is infinite. It is precisely through the process of such exchange that the participants establish themselves as absolutely equal – at least in theory!
That this kind/type of authentic and productive intercultural communication is not merely a utopian fabrication of daily politics but, on the contrary, a very real, verifiable and productive cultural phenomenon is clear to all those who have heard of the theatrical concept of Eugenio Barba, one of the most relevant and innovative theatrical practitioners of our time. Those who know a little more about Barba and his theatrical anthropology and perhaps have even seen some of his obviously intercultural productions can testify to the fact that such a specific theatrical concept (let us call it the theatre of exchange) has been successfully working for thirty years.
Where does the essence, the inevitability and, especially, the magnetic attraction of theatrical interculturalism, the topic we have chosen to address today, come from?
Does its true ‘story’ – its famed great narrative, to which the title of our conference also refers – really begin with the radical 1960s and has it really been personalized precisely in/through the trans-European and transcontinental adventures of a curious, agile and (then) very young and very unconventional Italian migrant-nomad-marginal figure with an aptly given and metaphorical surname Barba (Ital. barba: beard)?
Was the theatre, nonetheless, the site of intercultural/multicultural encounter and a unique intercultural exchange EVEN before Barba lucidly formulated and effectively transformed into practice his widely known four or five theses on which the entire structure of his ISTA (the International School of Theatre Anthropology) relies?
I believe that each of us would, if they were really expected to give an answer to this hypothetical question ‘in a flash,’ automatically reach for Antonin Artaud and his mythical Paris encounter with the dancers from Bali that took place some time around 1930. Allegedly this, now antiquated, encounter with a completely unknown culture and the communication that was established ‘in a flash’ demonstrates in s essence that the theatre had yearned for the theatralization of otherness/difference many years before Barba, Grotowski, Schechner and others transformed this yearning into a system.
the art is inside
