Between Theater and Anthropology

357 Pages·1985·33.51 MB·English

by  Richard Schechner

A N T H R O P O L O GY
R I C H A R D S C H E C H N E R
FOREWORD BY VICTOR TURNER
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS • PHILADELPHIA
Frontispiece: From Squat Theatre's Mr. Dead and Mrs. Free. Photo by Roe DiBona.
Cover photo: A Yaqui Deer Dancer demonstrating the dance at a conference sponsored by the
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, New Pascua, Arizona, 1981.
I rehearse and revise, then revise again and again. Thus there are many "originals" for each of the chapters of
this book. Usually there are changes from one version to another. Everything in the book has been thoroughly
revised for it.
Chapter 1, "Points of Contact," was written first for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research International Symposium on Theater and Ritual, 1982. It also appeared in South Asian Anthropologist
(Ranchi, India) 4, 1 (1983), in a special issue honoring Victor Turner.
Chapter 2, "Restoration of Behavior," was written first for the Wenner-Gren Symposium on Cultural
Frames and Reflections, 1977. It was first published in Studies in Visual Communication 7, 3 (1981). An abridged
version was included in A Crack in the Mirror, ed. Jay Ruby (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1982). Still another version is in my own Performative Circumstances from the Avant Garde to Ramlila (Calcutta:
Seagull Books, 1983).
Chapter 3, "Performers and Spectators Transported and Transformed," began as a lecture given at the
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1979. A version was printed as "Ritual in/of/and Theatre" in New
Wilderness Newsletter 9 (1980). Another version was printed in the Kenyan Review, 3, 4 (1981).
Chapter 4, "Ramlila of Ramnagar," appeared in the National Centre for the Performing Arts Quarterly Journal
(Bombay) 11, 3/4 (1982). An earlier version, co-authored with Linda Hess, appeared in The Drama Review, 21,
3 (1977).
Chapter 5, "Performer Training Interculturally," was published in French as "Defense el illustration de la
formation 'mecanique'" in La Grande Replique, (Montreal) 10 (1981). Another version was part of the
Canadian Theatre Review 35 (1982), a special issue devoted to training.
Chapter 6, "Playing with Genet's Balcony," was presented at a Colloquium on Theory of Drama and
Performance at the University of Toronto in 1980. It was published in Modem Drama 25, 1 (1982).
Chapter 7, "News, Sex, and Performance Theory," was a paper I delivered to a conference on "innova-
tion/renovation" in Racine and Milwaukee in 1981. An abridged version was printed in Innovation/Renovation:
New Perspectives on the Humanities, ed. Ihab and Sally Hassan (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983).
I thank all the editors, organizers, and patrons for giving me the various stages necessary to think on my
feet and revise in my study.
Design by Adrianne Onderdonk Dudden
Copyright © 198? by the University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Scheduler, Richard, 1934-
Between theater and anthropology.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Theater. 2. Anthropology. I. Title.
PN2041.A57S33 1985 792'.01 84-5197
ISBN 0-8122-1225-8 (paper)
Printed in the United States ol America
10 9 8 7 6 5
To Carol Martin
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List of Illustrations ix
Foreword by Victor Turner xi
Acknowledgmentss 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
Referencess 325
Index 333
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1. Yaqui Deer Dancer at New Pascua, Arizona, 1981 7
2. The Yaqui Water Drum 7
3. Peter Brook's Company in Africa 28
4. Eugenia Barba with Kyogen Actor Kosuka Nomura 29
5. Balinese Dancer Demonstrating Her Walking Technique 29
6. "Performing Ethnography" at the University of Virginia 30
7. Shakers Dancing in the Nineteenth Century 46
8. Doris Humphrey's The Shakers 46
9. Reconstruction of Shaker Service 47
10. Agnicayana: Oblation at Eagle-shaped Altar 56
77. Agnicayana: Priests Marking Sequence of Chants 57
12. Agnicayana: Burning of the Ritual Enclosures 57
13. Bharatanatyam 66
14. Temple Sculpting of Bharatanatyam-like Dancing 66
15. Purulia Chhau Festival at Matha, 1976 67
16. Purulia Chhau: Training in a Village 67
17. Mudmen of Asaro Dancing for Tourists 76
18. Masked Dancers of Kenetasarobe 76
19. Main Street at Plimoth Plantation (without Tourists) 82
20. Main Street at Plimoth Plantation (with Tourists) 82
21. ' 'Personation Biograph'' of Phineas Pratt 83
22. Putting on a Costume at Plimoth 84
23. Salting Pork at Plimoth 85
24. Indian Encampment at Wampanoag near Plimoth 85
25. The Performance Group Staging Cops 111
26. Vyases at Ramlila of Ramnagar 119
27. Narad-muni in the Ramnagar Ramlila 122
28. Mahant Baba Omkar Das (Narad-muni) 122