2018

Theater has been a focus of systematic investigation in anthropology since the 1970s. Because of its cross-cultural nature, theater has been of interdisciplinary interest to scholars employing ethnographic methods to analyze cultural meanings present in texts and embodied in rituals and in the social exchange of symbols between performers and audiences. Following the “affective turn” of the 1990s and under the influence of postcolonial critique, performance scholars and social scientists have begun to look at theater practices as processes of meaning making, political negotiation, and collabo- ration. Acknowledging theater’s immediacy in concentrating on what lies at the core k of what specific societies want to communicate about themselves, anthropologists have also used performances to communicate their fieldwork data in the form of ethnodramas. More recently, social research that has wished to privilege reflexivity and intersubjectivity has engaged with the actual practice of theatre making, to engage participants in active and ethical processes of knowledge production.

2022

This article is based on the broad network of interests established by Eugenio Barba in the first decade of ISTA with the world of science: a fertile, lively relationship with figures inside and outside the world of theatre. With the contribution of archival documents preserved in the Odin Teatret Archives, the article focuses on certain artistic and intellectual episodes that exemplify the relational dialectics of interpenetration, exercised in two opposing tensions (one of approach outwards, the other of attraction inwards), implemented by Barba in a vast knowledge-seeking project, unprecedented in the history of the theatre. It was also based on these premises that Barba promoted the concept of theatre anthropology as a plural, interdisciplinary and intercultural living discipline: a discipline founded on the study of human beings and the history of cultures, combining a purely humanistic approach with new research from the so-called hard sciences. The impact and wide range of interaction of theatre anthropology as a new subject in the field of knowledge subsequently gave rise, over following decades, to ample literature hosting a lively and constructive debate.

Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences, 2018

For this research we collected contemporary versions of the Mapuche “Kai Kai- Treng Treng” myth, with the aim of writing a theater script of the myth. Data were collected using ethnographic methods and focus on the interdisciplinary contribution of anthropology and theater to the cultural process of indigenous people and to the input that these disciplines can make in this way, considering the ethic responsibilities that underlie the process of intercultural representation. The cultural elements -myths and ritual-that were taken into consideration during data collecting and writing of the theater scrip are described and analyzed from an anthropological perspective.

2015

From Pussy Riot and the Arab Spring to Italian mafia dance, this collection provides an interdisciplinary analysis of relational reflexivity in political performance. By putting anthropological theory into dialogue with international development scholarship and artistic and activist practices, this book highlights how aesthetics and politics interrelate in precarious spheres of social life. The contributors of this innovative interdisciplinary volume raise questions about the transformative potential of participating in and reflecting upon political performances both as individual and as collectives. They also argue that such processes provide a rich field and new pathways for anthropological explorations of peoples' own reflections on humanity, sociality, change, and aspiration. Reflecting on political transformations through performance puts centre stage the ethical dimensions of cultural politics and how we enact political subjectivity.

Anthropology, Theatre, and Development: The Transformative Potential of Performance, 2015

International Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Recent anthropology is permeated with terms and notions relating to performance: Persons are often referred to as 'social actors'; research envisioned as 'performing the field'; traditional practices reimagined as 'cultural performances'; social life reconceptualised as improvisational and all sorts of political situations, from conflict to political campaigns, understood as dramatic. The profusion of performance tropes today emerged relatively recently as part of a theoretical shift from structure to process and later the crisis of representation, both of which movements can be said to have characterised anthropology in the second half of the 20 th century. In this entry I outline the turn towards performance in anthropology, key themes and debates in the anthropology of performance, and highlight emerging trends and future directions.

Barn – forskning om barn og barndom i Norden, 2022

To what IDPLO\ of cultural phenomena do the the cultures of ritual, performance and children's play-drama belong? I place them in the "cultural performance family". They are all varieties of cultural performance. And what features does the family of "cultural performance" have which we may find in various combinations in its family members? I will be looking for the visible features of the family members, as well as for their more hidden, common cultural "gene pool". A comparison of cultural features places my discussion in the discourse of cultural (social) anthropology. Although the parameters of the topic are vast, I will attempt to draw up a cluster of thoughts which can serve as a thematic introduction. Cultural performance The concept of performance, as understood by the social anthropologist Victor Turner, has its etymological root in the French SDUIRXUQLU-to "accomplish completely". Turner derives from this understanding the theory that, "Performance does not necessarily have the structuralist implications of manifesting form, but rather the SURFHVVXDO sense of "bringing to completeness" or "of accomplishing". In this sense, to perform would mean to complete a more or less involved process rather than to do a single deed or act" (Turner 1988a: 91). This is supported in the Oxford Dictionary (1933-1955), where we find: "to carry through to completion (action, process), to complete by adding what is wanted, to bring about, to go through and finish". In anthropological terms, performance does not necessarily mean performing for an outside spectator, but can also mean playing for and with the enclosed cultural collective of SHUIRUPHU VSHFWDWRUV (see Sutton-Smith 1979), or participant-spectators. &XOWXUDO performance, as defined by John MacAloon, is: the occasion LQ which as a culture or society, we reflect upon and define ourselves, dramatize our collective myths and history, present ourselves with alternatives, and eventually change in some ways while remaining the same in others. (Carlson 1996: 23, my emphasis) Turner defines cultural performance as an DHVWKHWLF family which includes such JHQUHV as folk-epics, ballads, stage dramas, ballet, modern dance, the novel, poetry readings, art exhibitions, and religious ritual. In these genres 5LWXDO 3HUIRUPDQFH DQG &KLOGUHQ ¶V ´3OD\GUDPD) DLWK *DEULHOOH *XVV