On Receiving an Honorary Doctorate, Warsaw, October 2017

Abstract

Acceptance speech on the occasion of the award of an honorary doctorate degree by the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw

While summarizing his professional achievements – his research on performance – Richard Schechner analyses the development, widening and transforming performance as a theoretical category and as actual behaviour. He reflects upon the consequences of this process, as well as recognizes that knowing what performances are and how they structure our everyday lives can help save the world - the world of rising fascism, civil war in Syria, global warming and overpopulation. The author begins with his own backyard, asserting that American society and American culture is infected and deformed by its largely self-created plague of wars. He understands war not solely in military terms, but first and foremost as a performative, that is an operation of creative imagination that makes people personalise virtue, martyrdom and national identity in the form of a thousand powerful plots. It is not only between people, but also between humans and nature. Schechner locates the conflict in the tri-polar world of religion, armed politics and globalised economy, and recognises the chance of counterbalance in creating a new ‘fourth world of aesthetics’ – created by visual artists, filmmakers, writers, poets, scholars, etc. – by performers.

The paper was presented by Schechner during the ceremony awarding him with the title of doctor honoris causa from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw.