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Travelling concepts are related to transfer, take-up, and redefinition. In this sense they function as an ideal basis to think about transcultural theatre. As Alfonso de Toro argues, “transculturality” can be understood as referring back to cultural models that aren’t generated by one’s “own” culture, but inherent to a “foreign” culture, identity or language. In this sense, he defines “transculturality” in distinction to globalization. Extending the term “intercultural theatre”, which implies linear paths and connections between permanently existing categories and binaries, the prefix “trans-” highlights—like travelling—uneven, contradictory relations and circulations. De Toro states:

Das Präfix ‘trans’ impliziert gerade keine Tätigkeit, die kulturelle Unterschiede verschleiert und diese unter dem Deckmantel der Globalisierung in eine gleichartige und gesichtslose, dem Produktivitäts- und Effektivitätsprinzip unterworfene Kultur überführt. Durch Globalisierungsprozesse werden Differenz und Alterität gerade herausgefordert […]. Das Präfix ‘trans’ meint keine kulturelle Nivellierung bzw. keine rein konsumtive Kultur, sondern bezeichnet einen nichthierarchischen, offenen, nomadischen Dialog, der unterschiedliche Identitäten und Kulturen in eine dynamische Interaktion bringt.1

Günther Heeg also describes “transculturality” in contrast to globalization. He defines “transculturality” as a model which helps us to deal in a productive way with the “otherness” in the context of globalization. Following Heeg, “transcultural theatre” means to cross boundaries into “otherness” while returning to the “selfness” and relating different temporalities and spaces in alternative ways to established connections of globalization.2 Heeg’s thoughts on “transcultural theatre” are shaped by a vocabulary of process, motion, and flow. He refers to Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of “Mondialisation” as a basis for his definition of “transcultural theatre”. “Mondialisation” is a form of “becoming-world” without any foundation, a virtual space without ontological fundament or meaningful regulation.3 Günther Heeg is not the only scholar who attempts to make sense of theatre in times of transnational circulation, post- and decolonialism, and interartistic formats. Whereas Heeg’s thinking is shaped primarily by deconstruction, Patrice Pavis works with the concept of “interculturality” instead of “transculturality”. His considerations of “intercultural performance” start with a short overview over the radical experiments of intercultural performance in the 1970’s and 1980’s.4 Pavis also reflects on the contemporary, changed conditions and environments of aesthetics and cultural politics. His thoughts are, however, entangled in the difficulty of wanting to move away from any essentialist notion of “culture”, while continuing to use its terminology. Homi Bhabhas definitions of “hybridity” and/or the concept of the “third space” were created more than twenty years ago (in 1994 and 1996, respectively). These two concepts stem from Bhabha’s postcolonial and poststructural critique of culture as a stable and definable entity that is, according to the author, always an affirmation of a problematic hierarchy in a binary system of thought (that privileges the Western/white master and others the person of color/servant). Therefore, for Critical Humanities, any use of the concept of “culture” has problematic aspects, and most thinkers rigorously avoid its definition. Pavis, for example, concludes his considerations on “intercultural” performance as follows:

What if the intercultural were in fact only an interartistic practice, a form of interdisciplinarity, a crossing, a confrontation and an addition of arts, of techniques, of acting modes? Take for example the integration of hip hop in contemporary dance, take this fusion of Baroque music, of classical dance and hip hop in the choreographic work of Dominique Hervieux and José Montalvo: are these cultures? Certainly not in the ethnological sense of the term, but definitely in the sense of high culture which ends up integrating a popular, marginal, parodical culture. Or maybe it is the other way round?5

Whereas in Pavis’s thinking, interculturality almost completely dissolves because anything – including an artistic education – can become a “culture”, De Toros concept of “transculturality” is more useful for our thinking, because it provides us with a tool to consider the “interactions” between “nomadic cultures.” Moreover, we can rely on Heeg’s approach, which makes us aware that “transcultural theatre” is more about finding the “other” in one’s supposed “own.”

We propose thinking of “transcultural theatre” as a form of travelling. Following Mieke Bal, concepts are operative terms that are not stable but differ widely in their meaning in different disciplines, cultures, and times. The term “travelling” suggests that they only stay alive as long as they are on their journey from one discipline / culture / time to another, as long as they are used and “performed.”6 Travelling concepts establish a “contact zone” by opening up a space in which different disciplines / cultures / times “meet, clash and grapple with each other.”7 Traces of their different meanings, which they load while their travels, are inherent and cannot be diminished. The term “travelling” emphasizes that travelling concepts are not to be understood as linear paths connecting various unrelated poles. Rather, they have to be seen as something that includes complex, unequal, and opposed relations.8

Bal utilizes the concept of “travel” in its historical dimension, referring to the tradition of the picaresque: “Hazardous, exciting, and tiring, travel is needed if you are to achieve the gain of new experience.”9 Additionally, she derives the concept of “travelling” from Jonathan Cullers remarks on performance and performativity,10 which suggests that “travelling concepts” could be adapted for the analysis of theatre and performance.

As Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning argue: “The term ‘travelling’ does not merely refer to cultural movement but to creative take-up, change, blending and redefinition.”11 In this sense it is similar to concepts of translation and transformation. We are interested in both the movement and in the creative take-up of McCarthy’s performances, which leads us to follow the travel of performance / sculptural art in Looking for Paul.