Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to give a brief overview on the historical context of modern Western theatre in terms of its idea and treatment of foreign and thus different cultures and their impact on the postwar American avant-garde performing arts. It also aims to propose some key problematics of intercultural appropriation in contemporary performing arts by elucidating such important notions in contemporary arts as postmodernism and Orientalism. In the course of discussion, Artaud and Brecht's attempts to apply Asian theatres in their works are confirmed as major breakthroughs in both theory and practice in the modern Western theatre. They also had considerable impacts among the postwar American theatre practitioners in the milieu of the Beat generation and hippie culture. Today, in this so-called postmodern era, the intercultural appropriation has established its position in the arts, and a new paradigm of the discourse of culture is essential. E.Said's discussion of Orientalism, offering his notion of culture as politics is provocative yet insightful in considering this phenomenon.
