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Recovering Ancient Ritual And The Theatre Of The Apache: A Journey Through The False Consciousness Of Western Theatre History, Marla Kathleen Dean

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines past cultural influences that have shaped theatre historians' perception of ancient Greek and contemporary Native American performance. It suggests that through a recognition of these influences, which have long tempered the Western narrative of theatre, ancient and Indigenous performance can be reviewed as similar forms of a lived exchange. The study tracks the formation of certain beliefs and assumptions within performance history through Roman, early Christian and Renaissance cultural identities. It notes the misrepresentation of oral and popular theatre within theatrical scholarship through its reliance upon the written remains of the ruling classes and confronts the notion …