Performing the Intercultural City

In 1971, Canada became the first country to adopt an official policy of multiculturalism. Performing the Intercultural City explores how Toronto—a representative global city in this multicultural country—stages diversity through its many intercultural theater companies and troupes. The book begins with a theoretical introduction to theatrical interculturalism. Subsequent chapters outline the historical and political context within which intercultural performance takes place; examine the ways in which Indigenous, Filipino, and Afro-Caribbean Canadian theater has developed play structures based on culturally specific forms of expression; and explore the ways that intercultural companies have used intermediality, modernist form, and intercultural discourse to mediate across cultures. Performing the Intercultural City will appeal to scholars, artists, and the theater-going public, including those in theater and performance studies, urban studies, critical multiculturalism studies, diaspora studies, critical cosmopolitanism studies, critical race theory, and cultural studies.
 
“Reaches beyond the particular context of Toronto to engage the issues of cosmopolitan cultural formations in the 21st century. Artists will be engaged by the case studies that explore unique dramaturgies and aesthetics, and academics by this in-depth study in the performativity of culture and identity formation. The book extends a model for studying intercultural dynamics in new ways.”
—Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Miami University of Ohio
 
“Challenges us to develop a holistic methodology that honors the full complexity of the intercultural. [The book’s] deft integration of contemporary critical approaches with indigenous ontologies and participatory ethnography is a magnificent achievement, one that will impact our field deeply.”
—Leo Cabranes-Grant, University of California, Santa Barbara

 

Ric Knowles is University Professor Emeritus of Theatre Studies, University of Guelph.