This new study explores the history of cross-cultural performative encounters in the Pacific from the Eighteenth century to the present. It examines Western theatrical representations of Pacific cultures and investigates how Pacific Islanders used their own cultural performances to negotiate the colonial situation.

'What the book provides is a superb way to begin to understand how rich the study of theatre and performance in the South Pacific may come to be...an extraordinarily valuable wide-angle glimpse of a diverse field.' - Sharon Mazer, Theatre Journal

'While Balme shines in his reading of the postcolonial politics that frame this type of theatrical setting, it is his larger argument about the performativity of cultural encounters...that constitutes his larger contribution to Pacific scholarship.' - Jane Desmond, The Contemporary Pacific

Autorentext
CHRISTOPHER B. BALME is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Munich, Germany. His publications include The Reformation of Comedy, Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncretism and Post-Colonial Drama and Fusion Cultures (editor), amongst others.

Inhalt
List of Illustrations Preface Introduction Pacific Overtures; Trumpets, Beaches, and Women Staged Authenticity; The South Seas and European Theatre, 1785-1830 Comedians and Crusaders; Anti-Theatrical Prejudice in the South Seas Dressing the Hulas and Taming the Haka; Performing Identity in Hawaii and New Zealand Kindred Spirits; Spectacles of Samoa in Wilhelminian Germany Birds of Paradise; American-Pacific Dramas of Displacement 'As You Always Imagined It': The Pacific as Tourist Spectacle Translocations and Transgressions; The Postcolonial Pacific Bibliography Index