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Bodymind/language : a journey towards an intercultural performance

This thesis inscribes itself inside of a new field of research where the practice and the theoretical study of theatre are considered as an integrated whole. It focuses on the potential of an active interplay of the performer's bodymind and key language structures in order to develop complex intercultural exchanges. Too often there has been a marked division between critics and practitioners where interculturalism is the subject of study. The present practice-based doctorate aims to bridge that gap by using the process of creation of three theatrical productions to interrogate and develop current critical approaches to intercultural performance practice. In addition, it makes use of an extensive array of training and acting techniques (which embrace aspects of Eastern as well as Western theatre praxis). The study and practice of those techniques serve as a way of both framing the performer as a bodymind entity and differentiating different stages of preparation and production in any given intercultural theatrical process. At the core of this research, there is a strong focus on understanding language as a bodily based-process and not merely as a linguistic or semantic one. Furthermore, it is suggested, key language structures serve as meeting points between culture and embodiment. Their in-depth exploration and translation are used to propose the creation of 'interpenetrating relationships' between different cultures able to challenge simple, national and cultural constrictions. Translational devices are hence tested and questioned throughout this thesis, ultimately proposing new strategies of action and analysis of the process of communication between cultures. It is precisely within the dialectic articulation of practice and theory where a new way of "thinking/doing" has emerged. This approach has enabled me to suggest the attainment of a form of communication able to resist current concepts of appropriation and exoticisation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:441290
Date January 2007
CreatorsRamírez Ladrón de Guevara, Victor Manuel
PublisherRoyal Holloway, University of London
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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