Reminiscence Theatre Crosses Cultural Boundaries through Performance Memory

By Wan-jung Wang

Introduction

My investigation in this paper aims to shed light on the question of how and why Reminiscence Theatre (shortened as R.T afterwards) can cross cultural and linguistic boundaries and communicate with people from different cultural horizons.
Furthermore, I also want to define and investigate the process and significance of R.T's specific kind of cross-cultural communication. In order to analyse critically and assess R.T's reception process. I will employ Merleau-Ponty's concept of body subjectivity in Phenomenology of Perception, Gadamar's hermeneutics and Pavis' and Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo's model of intercultural performance. I shall analyse and investigate how an audience forms their perceptions by identifying with the similarities and perceiving the differences between their own experiences and the elderly participants' through the performance memory.