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Calderón, Gozzi, and Voltaire, in order to create a framework for a more elaborate German theatre culture. However, these translations and their stage productions were full of compromises and adaptations to a common taste. On the other hand, in his later work, there is another type of world experience, perhaps a more radical encounter with the foreign. His West-East Divan (1819) deals with a kind of open dialogue between Arabic and German poetry.

      Contemporarily, there was an important phase in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when a new concept of World Theatre was promoted by the work of Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Eugenio Barba, Robert Wilson, and many others. This concept sought to explore how people all over the world could communicate through theatre. These efforts definitely went beyond the limits of dramatic literature but they were still dominated by a Western perspective. Therefore, from today’s point of view, talking about World Theatre should include an awareness of the potential, by which theatre as a cultural practice reflects and transgresses the boundaries of representation as well.

      Janine Lewis: I look at theatre as a profession. My understanding of the word “world” is influenced by different factors such as historical, institutional or colonial influences. Before the advent colonial influence, South African theatre was largely embodied and expressed in role-plays with numerous performance elements. This became the basis of the features of the South African theatre style per se. This theatre style developed and emerged through the township theatres and raised issues of resistance during the Apartheid period; it also becomes known later as protest theatre, agitprop or varieties. This means that at that time, we began engaging with postdramatic theatre performances through our ways of finding venues, spaces and activation of moments as theatrical narratives and performances. At the same time, there was theatre in Western, European styles related to literature. In our democratic environment today in South Africa, we have unfortunately lost the emphasis on embodied, postdramatic theatre that we used to have. We now focus more on structures and literature and we are trying to follow rules that are not necessarily very applicable to our means of theatrical storytelling and role-playing in South Africa. The artistic communities think that their work will only be legitimized if it is performed in institutional theatre spaces in the Western or European way, and this is one way of interpreting how World Theatre has impacted us in South Africa.

      Eiichiro Hirata: For me, the concept of World theatre is confusing. Unlike the concept of World Literature, the concept of World Theatre means something very abstract to me. At the centre of theatrical practice, the body and the concrete gesture are foregrounded, which are visible and tangible for everyone. The body and excess would be the common denominator of many theatrical forms of expression worldwide, constituting a form of expression first on the individual and then on the collective level. On this basis, I could name various comparable examples from the Japanese cultural space. Here, my first question would be: What is Kabuki Theatre?

      When and how did it start? It all began centuries ago with a woman who started dancing all by herself on a riverbank in Kyoto, which fascinated many people. Many young people joined her activities and showcased their singing and dancing. Kabuki began in a local spot in Kyoto and was later performed in other cities. 300 years later, when the Japanese society became open to the Western world and the subsequent intercultural exchanges, Kabuki became known as a “Japanese theatre” in the “world.”

      As many Japanese had suffered under the feudal system, the contact with Western culture was perceived as liberating. Along with the cultural opening towards the Western world, Japan first got in touch with Western theatre, e.g. William Shakespeare and Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen’s Nora, for example, is one of the first modern Western plays performed in Japan. When we speak of World Theatre, we have to consider historically differentiated developments and culture-specific characteristic forms of theatre, and along with it, socio-cultural resistance which theatre can practice against oppressive situations in each society.

      Koku G. Nonoa: On the basis of everything you have said I will affirm that it is not possible to reduce all theatrical cultures and practices in the world and their corresponding modes of expression to one single theatrical form and structure. Historical and cultural approaches are very important. This means that taking into account diverse perspectives in their socio-cultural context should reflect more lived cultural practices of people in Asia or Africa or other non-Western theatre practices than the Eurocentric viewpoint could. The historical dimension of colonialism and the influence of Europe relating to the global spread of Western theatre culture should also be questioned and analyzed e.g. in relation to theatre buildings. Considering the process of institutionalizing theatre through the construction of (national) theatre buildings in Europe and in other places or continents in the world (during the period of colonization) helps us to figure out how certain forms of theatre successfully spread throughout the world. Equally taking into account historical and institutional impacts in relation to culture-specific dimensions, it becomes clear that theatre has always been more than artistic practice: it is a cultural practice, a medium of social representation and an expression of cultural performance.

      Mziwoxolo Sirayi: I agree with the speakers that the word “world” in the concept of World Theatre is problematic. I advocate an approach which focuses on the description of theatrical practices rather than on definitions of concepts related to theatre. When, e.g., the missionaries came in Africa and saw theatrical role-playing, they said: “There is no theatre in Africa as we know it in Europe”. This means they had a specific understanding on the basis of which the whole concept of theatre is defined in Europe. So I would like to ask: When we talk about the concept of theatre or World Theatre, are we talking about a technical definition or a practical definition? Is it the definition of Word Theatre we are looking for when we are among Xhosa or Zulu people in South Africa? If yes, you will never find such a word; you can never find a word that literally translates the terms “theatre” or World Theatre into Xhosa or Zulu language in the European understanding. If we take, e.g., the concept of the “human being“ in analogy to the concept of theatre, we become aware that this is actually an English or European term: does this mean that there are no human beings among Xhosa or Zulu people just because there is no literal translation of the concept of “human being“ in their languages? Of course, there are human beings there, too. We might not have the concept of theatre in the European understanding of the term, but does this imply that we don’t have theatrical practices? The question is, how do people in South Africa explain and describe their theatrical practices? And moreover, Africa is not a homogeneous continent. There are so many different communities and cultures in Africa. Are we suggesting that each of these diverse cultures and its people do not have theatrical practices and do not name them according to their own understanding and modes of expression? It is good to look at how, e.g., Xhosa or Zulu people describe and label these theatrical practices. If we look at the notion of “World Theatre” from a practical perspective, we may not have the same concept, but there are many similarities between performance practices in Europe and Africa that make one think of different forms of theatre practice.

      Teresa Kovacs (from the audience): I think it is very important to question what the term “World Theatre” is actually supposed to mean. After a historical contextualization, we should also ask ourselves what relationship between world and theatre we are thinking of.

      Günther Heeg: The problem is related to the concept of the “world“, which is related to marketing strategies. I would propose another term, rooted in the French approach based on the work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. In my view, the key terms in this respect are globalization and mondialisation in the processual sense of becoming a world. This means that the world actually does not exist. In Jean-Luc Nancy’s understanding, there is only the creation of a world, his thesis being that globalization should be seen as economic globalization. Financial flow in the form of digital communication led to an agglomeration of wealth and poverty in large metropoles. This, however, does not lead to the development of a world. For Nancy, it is all about what this world development could look like. He says that this mondialisation can only emerge from a “lack of meaning”; this is constituted by theatre. Theatre does not have a reason: It is not rooted in cult, or in religion, or in politics. Theatre is a phenomenon of repetition and therefore, the development of a

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