First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Five Continents of Theatre undertakes the exploration of the material culture of the actor, which involves the actors’ pragmatic relations and technical functionality, their behaviour, the norms and conventions that interact with those of the audience and the society in which actors and spectators equally take part. The material culture of the actor is organised around body-mind techniques (see A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology by the same authors) and auxiliary techniques whose variety concern: ■ the diverse circumstances that generate theatre performances: festive or civil occasions, celebrations of power, popular feasts such as carnival, calendar recurrences such as New Year, spring and summer festivals; ■ the financial and organisational aspects: costs, contracts, salaries, impresarios, tickets, subscriptions, tours; ■ the information to be provided to the public: announcements, posters, advertising, parades; ■ the spaces for the performance and those for the spectators: performing spaces in every possible sense of the term; ■ sets, lighting, sound, makeup, costumes, props; ■ the relations established between actor and spectator; ■ the means of transport adopted by actors and even by spectators. Auxiliary techniques repeat themselves not only throughout different historical periods, but also across all theatrical traditions. Interacting dialectically in the stratification of practices, they respond to basic needs that are common to all traditions when a performance has to be created and staged. A comparative overview of auxiliary techniques shows that the material culture of the actor, with its diverse processes, forms and styles, stems from the way in which actors respond to those same practical needs. The authors’ research for this aspect of theatre anthropology was based on examination of practices, texts and of 1400 images, chosen as exemplars.

Anya Peterson Royce turns the anthropological gaze on the performing arts, attempting to find broad commonalities in performance, art, and artists across space, time, and culture. She asks general questions as to the nature of artistic interpretation, the differences between virtuosity and artistry, and how artists interplay with audience, aesthetics, and style. To support her case, she examines artists as diverse as Fokine and the Ballets Russes, Tewa Indian dancers, 17th century commedia dell'arte, Japanese kabuki and butoh, Zapotec shamans, and the mime of Marcel Marceau, adding her own observations as a professional dancer in the classical ballet tradition. Royce also points to the recent move toward collaboration across artistic genres as evidence of the universality of aesthetics. Her analysis leads to a better understanding of artistic interpretation, artist-audience relationships, and the artistic imagination as cross-cultural phenomena. Over 29 black and white photographs and drawings illustrate the wide range of Royce's cross-cultural approach. Her well-crafted volume will be of great interest to anthropologists, arts researchers, and students of cultural studies and performing arts.

The distances that separate East from West - the two extremes of the Eurasian continent - are enormous. Yet, since ancient times, the people of Europe and Asia have tried to overcome this remoteness through a network of trade routes known as the Silk Road. The great migrations, the continuous military conquests and the paths relentlessly opened up by merchants have been at the origin of ideological, technical and artistic exchanges, resulting in a fusion of cultures. Among the ceaseless travellers on the routes of the Silk Road, along with soldiers, merchants, messengers, and pilgrims, we find those who earned their living as jugglers, acrobats, musicians, actors and dancers. They were people who brought with them, rooted in their bodies, their own techniques and histories. Through these performers, the 'fabulous and mysterious Orient' has exerted an ongoing influence on the art of the theatre in Europe and America. In the same way, especially in modern times, actors and dancers from India, China, Japan, and other Asian countries have drawn inspiration from Western dramatic genres for a renewal of their ancient traditions. A long history of travelling actors moving between East and West has slowly taken shape, and lies at the foundation of our contemporary, professional performative arts. This updated and revised edition of Drama and Performance Between East and West (first published in 1992), traces this history from classical antiquity to the present. The book constitutes the first complete in-depth historiographic inquiry into the subject.

Theatre/Archaeology is a provocative challenge to disciplinary practice and intellectual boundaries. It brings together radical proposals in both archaeological and performance theory to generate a startlingly original and intriguing methodological framework.

This multidisciplinary study explores how people make sense of each other's actions.

Body Matters approaches the material world directly; it seeks to remind people that they are the matter of their bodies. This volume offers an assortment of contributions from anthropology, archaeology and medieval studies, with case studies from northern Europe, the Near East, East Africa and Amazonia, which variously draw attention to the multiple shifting materials that comprise, impact upon and co-create human bodies. This lively collection foregrounds myriad material influences interacting with and shaping the human body; the chapters come together to illustrate the fundamental fleshy, bony, suppurating, leaky and oozing physicality of being human. Ultimately, by reminding readers of their indisputable materiality, Body Matters seeks to draw people and the rest of the material world together to illustrate that bodies not only seep into (and are part of) the landscape, but equally that people and the material world are inextricably co-constitutive.

The Odin Teatret Archives presents collections from the archives of one of the foremost reference points in global theatre. Letters, notes, work diaries, articles, and a wealth of photographs all chart the daily activity that underpins the life of Odin Teatret, telling the adventurous, complex stories which have produced the pioneering work that defines Odin's laboratory approach to theatre. Odin Teatret have been at the forefront of theatrical innovation for over fifty years, devising new strategies for actor training, knowledge sharing, performance making, theatrical alliances, and ways of creating and encountering audiences. Their extraordinary work has pushed boundaries between Western and Eastern theatre; between process and performance; and between different theatre networks across the world. In this unique volume, Mirella Schino brings together a never before seen collection of source materials which reveal the social, political, and artistic questions facing not just one groundbreaking company, but everyone who tries to make a life in the theatre.

An encyclopedic dictionary of technical and theoretical terms, the book covers all aspects of a semiotic approach to the theatre, with cross-referenced alphabetical entries ranging from absurd to word scenery.