In performances by Euro-Americans, Afro-Americans, Native Americans, and
Asians, Richard Schechner has examined carefully the details of
performative behavior and has developed models of the performance
process useful not only to persons in the arts but to anthropologists,
play theorists, and others fascinated (but perhaps terrified) by the
multichannel realities of the postmodern world.
Schechner argues that in failing to see the structure of the whole
theatrical process, anthropologists in particular have neglected close
analogies between performance behavior and ritual. The way performances
are created--in training, workshops, and rehearsals--is the key paradigm
for social process.