And yet, what kind of trendy interculturalism are we talking about?
Is it the kind Artaud fantasized about, and the very young “Artaud fans” Grotowski and Barba (somewhere in the dawn of the 1960s and in some of the most lucid “early works” that they produced then) spiritedly endeavored to experiment with? In other words, can this “original”, explorative, abstract, vertical, archetypal, psychoanalytical, utopian and, after all, experimental interculturalism at all develop into a trendy phenomenon? Or, is it perhaps (still!) too “exotic” to become a product for “mass consumption” and, conquering theatre stages “all over,” radically influence the habits of wide audiences?
Or is it, despite everything, some “later” variety of theatre interculturalism, a mutation of the initial Artaudian idea and one of the pragmatic compromises made on its behalf? Is the so-called trendy interculturalism of the kind customarily practiced on today’s theatre stages worldwide nothing more than consumer-oriented and quite pragmatic performance practice which, when I explain it to my students, I usually describe as “interculturalism of the general type” (analogous with “wide spectrum antibiotic”)?
This trendy interculturalism can be easily recognized as evident, explicit, horizontal, dystopic and, finally, simplified to the limits didactic interculturalism reduced to the appallingly easily recognizable elements “taken over” from different cultures not for the purpose of their creative exchange between the participants in the process, but for the sake of their shrewd and effective combination (in Barba’s words, editing) into a common whole which then becomes more colourful and dynamic and, generally, more suitable for “mass consumption”!
It is only fair to admit that today we are witnesses of a very interesting paradox: theorizing about theatre intertextuality has become incomparably more productive and more successful than making intercultural theatre productions!
Or perhaps we are wrong? Perhaps we will be closer to the truth if we say that this very interesting paradox was felt by Artaud himself, who was a brilliant but also atypical “maker” of an almost perfect theatre concept which, precisely because of its perfection, was impossible to achieve in everyday practice. As we know, Artaud did not even try to achieve it.
If this is so, and everyday theatre practice indicates that it is (more or less, with certain exceptions that deserve our respect), what is, then, the object of interest of the numerous performances that are customarily declared as intercultural? Try to recall some of them, some that you have seen and remembered, and then try only vaguely to reconstruct their aesthetics. And then, identify their object of interest.
Let us simplify the question. It will suffice if you try to answer how these productions function, after all. Do they function by theatralizing the “samenessses” which should be “joined” with different cultures in an Artaudian manner or (nonetheless!) strive to create harmonious “stories” that consist of edited pieces based on the differences which make the respective cultures specific and unique? These questions concern those inevitable and natural differences which, because of the fact that all the participants in the act of performing and the audience strictly adhere to them, systematically enrich the intercultural theatrical practice of this type with popular plays whose primary goal is often the propagation of “harmonious coexistence” and “ togetherness in harmony.”
If you read the last sentence once again, you will easily notice the qualitative change in its terminology. Suddenly – and not without reason – it seems to cross the line which differentiates and delineates scholarly and political discourse. The categories such as difference, respect, harmony, coexistence, propagation, togetherness are evidently political in their provenance.
Why have they suddenly become part of the theatrological discourse?
Firstly, because politics has become all-present and powerful in an Orwellian manner and as such has permeated (superiorly and relentlessly) all the segments of social life. As one of the most receptive arts of our time, the theatre cannot (even if it wanted to, and it doesn’t!) distance itself from politics, nor can it avoid the trends that it imposes.
One such trend, a trend which is at the moment the most trendy of all, is this famed multiculturalism.
The term multiculturalism began to circulate – and triumphantly so – some thirty years ago when in 1971 the charismatic Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudot promoted it in order to express his pride in the “harmonious coexistence” practiced in his great country in which members of different ethnic communities who speak different languages and belong to different confessions live happily and in deep mutual respect. Since then, the famed multiculturalism has been promoted as an almost magic formula. Based on high ethical standards such as tolerance and respect for differences, this concept seriously imposed, and continues to do so, the utopian idea that it can work in all circumstances and in every place. The processes of globalization that gained in intensity and were accelerated in the early 1980s understood quite well the potential of the multicultural utopia and began to disseminate it systematically. Today, we can competently speak and write about multiculturalism as the “common denominator” of all kinds of things: tradition, education, politics, music, literature… and, of course, theatre.
When I tried to test the potential of this powerful and clearly trendy phenomenon with the help of the same Internet search engine I have referred to above (Google), it took me two minutes to state the following:
Some three basic concepts/categories which concern certain important aspects of multiculturalism (see: multicultural theatre, multicultural policy, multicultural education), appear on the Web in more than 14,000,000 virtual combinations of all kinds. Yes, fourteen million!
The figure looks so impressive that it automatically cancels the need for any comment or even analysis. This figure leads us directly to the inevitably aporic and ambiguous conclusion: it is indisputable that the famed multiculturalism has become a magic formula, but it is just as indisputable that this formula is too good to be true!
the art is inside
