Richard Schechner and Performance Studies in China

Abstract

As a global phenomenon, performance studies is constantly evolving, and from the very beginning of its emergence as a discipline, it has embraced an intercultural sensibility. Conceptually, it does not belong to any individual nation or culture, and one of its strengths is that different nations and different cultures have interpreted performance studies differently. As Richard Schechner has noted: “Different cultures collide and fuse with each other. That is what we called ‘intercultural performance.’”¹ Schechner’s work and his professional activities not only convey performance studies’ intercultural sensibility; that work encourages this sensibility as well. We as performance studies scholars in China have felt that encouragement. But before going into a discussion of how Schechner’s work as a scholar and theatre practitioner has influenced the emergence of performance studies in China, we would like to explain our own particular relationship to the field of performance studies and our specific relationship to Richard Schechner.